


each is finite. each will fade.

by augustdepot



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Abandonment Issues, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Cis Martin Blackwood, High-Risk Pregancy, Isolation, M/M, Oral Sex, Past Child Abuse, Penis In Vagina Sex, Pregnant Sex, Trans Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Unplanned Pregnancy, Unsafe Sex, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex, post-partum depression, self-harm ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 03:49:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 39,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29895183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/augustdepot/pseuds/augustdepot
Summary: And what then? If he is? Just tell Martin they're going to be parents? Congratulations, we haven't been on a single date but I'm carrying your child, sorry if it's a shock, I hadn’t been taking any sort of birth control and I honestly thought it just wouldn't come up.If he tells Martin then stays, if he dies, what has he done then? Offered Martin his love on a platter, then snatched it all away, shown him a future where each of them holds a little hand, then buried it in flames and broken plastic?jon and martin say goodbye before the unknowing. jon dies. jon wakes up. after that, things go about as well as you would expect.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 29
Kudos: 114





	each is finite. each will fade.

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on a number of tweets by Rox (@pussyarchives on twitter), which I happened to see first thing upon opening the app a while back and latched onto as a daydream to get through a rough time. He very kindly allowed me to borrow the concept, then very kindly cleaned it up, titled it, and helped me figure out how to tag it.
> 
> For further details on anything tagged, please see the end note.
> 
> Jon is transgender, vocab: chest, breast, tits, cock, clit, entrance, vagina, and this is literally entirely about pregnancy, so there is a lot of talk about that process. He's also sort of hinted at being gnc, but it isn't really touched on past mentioning maternity clothing and his unease about it.
> 
> Jon is asexual and does engage in sexual acts, before, during, and after his pregnancy. He makes mention of his sexuality, as does Martin, but it isn't largely discussed.
> 
> And I would like to clarify, just because there are a few unkind things included - this is Jon's pov, and he’s angry, hurt, scared, and often not reliable to provide objective views. He spends a lot of time upset and doesn’t always react to or think of other characters charitably. His thoughts don’t always reflect the absolute reality of the situation, ESPECIALLY in regards to how they may affect his baby. This is coming from the pov of someone who has lost pretty much everything and is refusing to lose something else, and as a result sometimes sees other people as a threat to that, and he does have some moments of paranoia that he focuses on the assistants.

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one

There's nothing more to be done. Two days of clothes packed. One night on the way, one night back. A few statements. Tape recorder. Explosives. His desk had been tidied, loose papers sorted and put away. Pens he's chewed beyond use tossed out. Same for wrappers from granola bars conveniently left with the understanding he'll eat without noticing as he works.

Everyone else is out toasting their potential deaths. He didn't go. He's certain he wasn’t included in the invitation.

There's only so much he can do before the only thing left is thinking about it. He doesn't want to think about it.

He checks the computer is turned off again. It is.

Jon leaves his office and aims for storage. Might as well be a bit more comfortable while he mopes. He'll curl up and nap if he can to distract from the anxiety. That will do. Can't be any worse asleep than it is awake.

His plan is foiled when he finds Martin has taken the cot for himself. He’s slouched, as if to make himself smaller, tugging at a loose thread along the cuff of his sweatshirt.

Martin startles and looks up at the sound of the door. His eyes are red. "Hey. Didn't realize anyone else was here."

"Just me. Thought you'd be out with the rest."

Martin laughs. It's sharp. Jon doesn't care for it.

"No. I don't have much interest in celebrating at the moment."

"Mm."

Jon could join him. Lean against the wall beside him. Brush their arms together. They'd been… close. Or something like it, after Jon stopped waiting to be killed by his coworkers, before he started waiting to be killed by everything else. They talked. Had lunch most days when Jon wasn't missing or on the run. Out in the world, like two normal people who like each other, enjoy each other's company. Jon pulling every thread in the fabric of Martin Blackwood, not out of fear, but a burgeoning love of the design. A desire to see each strand as it is and how it informs the whole. Letting a few of his own be unraveled.

He could sit with Martin before walking to his death. He wants to, so he does.

Martin watches him cross the room and settle on the cot. Their legs are just barely touching. It’s quiet for a long while.

"You'll be careful?" Jon asks, when it’s become too much.

"Me?" Martin rolls his eyes and leans his head back against the wall. "You're going to blow up a nightmare carnival and I'm the one you're worried about? I'll be fine, there's burn cream in the first aid kit if my hand slips."

"You know what he's capable of, Martin. You don't need- " Jon huffs. This isn't the time for frustration. He can't let his last words to Martin be cruel. He _won't._ "I just don't want to…"

"I can handle this _one thing._ Promise I won't -"

"I know you can _handle it."_ God, people think _Jon_ is touchy. "It's not about that. I just don't want you to get hurt, Martin. I want you to be careful because I want you to be _safe._ It's…" Jon sighs and looks away. His thigh is warm where it rests against Martin's.

"It's what?"

Jon clasps his hands in his lap and takes a deep breath. It used to be easier. They had so little time but they had filled it best they could. He’s told Martin things he kept to himself for years- losing his parents, beginning his transition with a kitchen-shear haircut, losing his grandmother without ever hearing her use his name, desperately hoping hormones would fix what he’d been told is wrong with him. It should be simple to say this now. Do something. He watches his fingers twisting against each other and counts to ten once, then twice more, then once more again for good measure.

"I… care. About you. And I don't want to leave thinking you're going to end up in trouble. If you could just humor me, so I won’t feel like I’m abandoning you to be terrorized for our sake."

Martin huffs. “You… aren’t _abandoning_ me. This is the plan. I agreed to it. I mean, it was _my idea_ , I could have fought back if I wasn’t willing to do it.”

“Still.” Jon could shake him. Jon could shake himself. It would be easier if he could just say it. “Your wellbeing is important to me, regardless of the circumstances. Just because you’ve agreed doesn’t mean it can’t backfire.”

“It won’t. It’ll be fine. You need to worry about you.” Martin curls in on himself even further before adding softly, “That’s what I’ll be doing.”

In some ways it’s nice to hear, but mostly it makes Jon feel awful. He looks up. Martin’s eyes are closed. His lashes are wet. Martin shouldn’t be crying, he never should, but especially not over Jon. 

“Well, I have a fair bit of backup. No need to worry about me.”

“Absolutely full offence intended, I don’t think that’s the crew I want watching your back, Jon.”

“It’s the one I’ve got.” Yes, of course, hates him, hates him and tried to murder him, almost tolerates him on a good day but would still murder him if he took a wrong step. A team of consummate professionals. The world is ending. “I wouldn’t feel any better knowing you were at risk of being exploded with the rest of us. It’s better, having you here. Less immediate risk of physical danger. Fewer mannequins, if nothing else.”

Martin doesn’t respond. 

Jon could tell him. What better time, besides any other time? He may not _have_ another time. He should have told him before. At the cafe with the pink paper cups, or as they savored their tea on the thirty minute walk back because Martin had suggested taking the long way, or over cheap rum and awful lo mein from the only place that would deliver to the Institute in the wee hours of the morning, or during the dozen phone calls from across the world when he would admit he missed Martin but not why, or when Martin wiped away the blood and dirt caked on his neck before bandaging it with movements so gentle Jon had barely felt the pain.

He wants it. Just for now, just for a moment. He wants to die knowing without question Martin Blackwood thought he was worth loving, even if only for one night.

“Martin?” He opens his eyes and turns to Jon. God, he’d started it, he can’t stop now _._ “I…” It’s too big for words. How could any language carry all this?

Jon climbs to his knees so he’s tall enough and faces Martin. He reaches out his good hand to rest trembling fingertips on Martin’s jaw, sets the other against Martin’s chest, where his low range of motion won’t be a bother. He moves slowly, so, so slowly, so Martin can stop him if he wants.

Martin doesn’t move away, so Jon kisses him. It’s barely enough to be called a kiss - a brush, a graze, the impression of. He takes a moment to linger, hope, stays close enough to feel breath against his own lips. When Jon pulls back, Martin is crying again, eyes closed and brow creased.

“I’m sorry,” Jon says. Of course. Of course, fucking stupid. Can’t even gauge this right after so much time- 

“Do it again.” The way his voice cracks makes Jon ache. Martin breathes in then out slowly. “If you... please. _Please._ If you meant it then do it again.”

Jon shifts his hand to hold Martin's cheek and pulls him forward to try once more. Martin is in sync with Jon this time, tilting his head and parting his lips, sighing into Jon’s mouth, leaving the taste of tears on his tongue.

He could die happy, like this, with Martin's bottom lip between his own, Martin's nose brushing his cheek, Martin's hair caught in his fingers, Martin's hands coming to his waist and pulling him closer. If he had allowed himself to hope, it wouldn't have been this way - somewhere nice, after a pleasant dinner, the chance to try again tomorrow. It isn't what he would have dreamed of. It's what he has. It's perfect.

When Martin leans away for air, Jon takes a moment to look at him again. He's lovely, always, and even more so up close and knowing what's disheveled him. Cheeks flushed under the tears dripping down them, auburn hair tousled from roaming hands, pupils nearly obscuring the brown of his eyes. Lips pink and parted from Jon's attention.

Jon rushes into motion, straddles Martin and surges forward, kisses him again. Hands grasp at his hips, his back, his hair. The sound of them is obscene, even in an act so simple as this - Jon whining into Martin's mouth, Martin moaning in response to Jon's teeth pulling at his lip.

Jon presses his forehead to Martin's. "I want…"

"Anything, Jon, _anything."_ That he could go back, hear those words from Martin's mouth in simpler times, without the fate of the world hanging over them -

"Touch me, please," he begs. He tugs off his old tee shirt and cardigan in one movement. Martin sucks in a sharp breath, pauses before he looks, as though he isn't sure he's allowed.

Jon's never had any thoughts about his breasts, even in this context. Only as tissue, a contrast to the bony mess of the rest of him. Fat, skin, dusting of hair heavy across but fading where it trails downward between them, the side of the left dotted with worm scars because he’d fallen forward onto the right. Sensitive enough even after that to be frustrating at times. They're small, easily hidden if he wears enough layers, and just enough to fill Martin's palms when Jon brings his hands up to touch. For the first time Jon considers them as something to be desired. He wonders if they're good enough, nice enough to be appreciated - for Martin to appreciate.

He can't hold the thought without anxiety filling his lungs. He's already suffocating on every other feeling, already crying through what may be his only chance to do this. He can’t drown in it now. After only a few gentle strokes, a thumb glancing across a nipple, a pinch to the other that spurs a jerk of his hips, he pulls at the hem of Martin's sweatshirt. "Can…"

He nods shakily. "If you want to," he says with a wavering voice. "Anything you want to do, Jon, I'll let you." Jon sits back to strip it off.

Martin is soft. He's big and broad and curved and rolled, with freckles and folds and faint silver stretch marks, and a little black bird tattooed on his left shoulder. It isn't enough for Jon to understand the inherent desire everyone goes on about, but he loves this body because it’s Martin’s body. He lets his hands wander while he steals another kiss, then another, and another, until his own body is so tight against Martin’s he imagines he can feel his heart beating. Martin runs his hands down Jon’s back before wrapping around his hips again. It’s Martin’s hands on his bare skin, Martin’s tongue brushing his lip, Martin’s fingers promising bruises for tomorrow against his sides. He finds himself shifting and bearing down, so caught up he can’t tame his response, and Martin rolling upward in return.

He needs to feel Martin. Martin seems to be in agreement. They could. There’s still time, even if it’s so little. They could. 

He moves away again and reaches for the waistband of his jeans. He’s managed the button and started at the zip before hands close around his wrists, holding him in place.

“Jon.” Martin shakes his wrists until he looks him in the eye, still red and watering. “You don’t have to -”

“Do you not want -”

“Jon, where you’re sitting I think you can tell exactly how much I want.” Martin lets go of him to rest his hands on Jon’s thighs. “Just… don’t do this if you don’t want it, too.”

Does he think this is out of pity? Or just something to do while waiting for tomorrow? Does he not feel electric current burning Jon’s skin? Does he not understand what Jon wants to say, could say if it wasn’t for the weight on his shoulders? God, just tell him. Something, anything to make him understand. Take a moment. Deep breath. Stay focused long enough to get this out.

Jon rests his hands over Martin’s, then changes his mind and slides them under, so he’s holding them. It’s the first time he’s held Martin’s hands. He wishes it wasn’t.

“If - if we didn’t have all this - if we weren’t so… that… If things were better, I would still want this, and I would want to explain everything and take the time to do it properly. I… Ideally, I would have done it a long time ago. Maybe had the forethought to take you to - to dinner first. But we don’t have that. And I don’t want to die thinking… thinking I missed my chance because I was too stupid to take it. If this is…” He sighs. Collects himself. “ 'No' is good enough, if you don’t want to do this. You won’t have to explain or justify. If you… Just tell me if you don’t...”

Martin wipes his eyes and takes over working at the zipper. Jon scrambles to his feet long enough to shed both layers before he’s reaching for Martin’s, urging him to lift up so he can remove them as well. In a different world, Jon would spend more time getting to know Martin’s body past what he’s already seen, but for now he just settles over him again. Martin is hot and hard between them, and so, so close to where Jon wants him - if he moves forward, raises himself up again, he could -

Before he can act on the thought, Martin reaches for him, stops just short of his stomach. “Can I touch you?” When Jon nods, he drags his fingers lower until they meet Jon’s cock.

The first touch is a teasing brush down his shaft. Martin follows the path again and again, pulling faint whimpers from Jon, before he circles the head with the pad of his thumb. Jon braces himself against Martin’s shoulders; his nails scratch pink trails across his skin. Martin slides his hand lower, a struggle in their position, skating between Jon’s folds, then returns to stroking him between two now-wet fingers. The motion is firm and insistent before turning light and lingering and back again, sending sparks up Jon’s spine. His hips roll into the pressure. He would feel bad about the angle of Martin’s wrist if all thoughts hadn’t been pushed to the back of his mind, would reach for Martin where he’s brushing against Jon’s thigh to return the favor if he wasn’t holding on for all he’s worth.

“What do you need, Jon?” Martin asks. His other hand creeps upward to palm one of Jon’s breasts, thumb flicking against his nipple before pinching and pulling. He could nearly come from that alone if only Martin had the time to invest, but for now he makes another choice.

“Your fingers, please, I want to feel you inside me, please _, please -”_

When Martin shifts his hand and pushes two fingers into him, Jon keens. He hadn’t known he was capable of a sound so wanton, so shameless. He cries out again as Martin curls his fingers relentlessly, no room to thrust with Jon so close against him. His thumb presses into the base of Jon’s clit, unmoving, a steady, deep pressure to grind against as he rides Martin’s hand. It’s only moments before he sneaks in another finger that meets no resistance.

Jon falls forward to rest his forehead on Martin’s shoulder, moans louder when he feels Martin’s head bow to kiss along his neck. He can see Martin’s hand against his tits, Martin’s cock resting against his thigh, Martin’s last finger unbending to slide inside him with the rest.

He’s so close, he’s so fucking close, his ears are ringing and his legs are quaking and he’s so close -

“Jon.” When he looks up, Martin kisses him. It’s brutal, tongue and teeth and tears, Jon sobbing into Martin’s mouth. Martin bites his bottom lip as he pulls away, the same time giving a harsh tug to Jon’s nipple. It does the job - Jon wails until his breath runs out, hunches in on himself lest he fly apart, lets Martin pet his back gently as he tries to survive the feeling.

Before the high is fully over, he slips off Martin’s fingers and drags him until he’s flat on the cot. He straddles Martin again, reaches for him, lines him up at his entrance. “Can I -”

As soon as Martin nods, Jon sinks down. If he hadn’t just come it would be a struggle, and even so, it still takes him a few shaky rolls before he can fit it all with the way his muscles still flutter and flex, until it - _how,_ it must be in his ribs, cracking them apart from the inside.

When he’s settled himself and no longer feels like he’s been dropped on a bollard, he focuses on Martin - the soft litany of curses and praise under his breath, the trembling of his legs as he tries to hold still, hands so tight against Jon's waist he's certain to feel it for days, however many he has left.

He lifts himself and drops, and _god,_ it's fucking good, even with the twinge of pain when he reaches the base, worth it for the moan it draws out of Martin. He wants to suffocate under that sound. He sets his hands against Martin's chest and begins to move.

Jon sets a quick pace, one he knows he can only maintain for a short time, hoping it will be enough for Martin to get close. He seems to appreciate it - he thrusts up shallowly, meeting each fall of Jon's hips, helping Jon rise again with the hands at his waist, wordless groans mixing with cries of _so good, please, amazing, Jon, Jon, Jon -_ he hadn’t realized how it would be to hear that, he’s good for Martin, he wants to be good for him, to be good to him, be worthy of the image in Martin’s head.

Before long, Jon's limited strength gives out. He knew it would only be a minute or two before it happened. His thighs burn and quiver from the exertion, his arms ache from using them to help raise himself. He leans forward, sets his forehead against Martin's chest, tries to circle his hips to give Martin any sort of friction while he recovers, to keep the pressure where he needs it to tumble over the edge again.

“Let me help,” Martin says. He noticed him struggling, of course he did, he always does, sees what Jon needs before Jon even knows it himself. “You did so well, Jon, let me help you, don’t worry, I’ll take care of you.” His hands slip under Jon’s thighs to lift him until only the head of his cock remains inside. He keeps him there for a moment, then he plants his feet and takes control.

Martin drives into him, fast, relentless, unforgiving. Jon longs to reach for his face, kiss him, tell him all the things he deserves to hear, but he can’t look away from his tits rocking with every movement, the flexing of Martin’s arms where they hold him up, the place Martin enters him. He can’t think past the sound of the cot creaking beneath them, the slap of their skin, his own whines over Martin’s constant praises. Martin’s hands move down on Jon’s thighs so they spread further apart and he drops lower in his grip. The angle changes and Jon shouts, bites into Martin’s collar, digs his fingers into his ribs.

His thrusts turn urgent. “Jon, I’m close, I’m -” Jon clamps his knees around Martin’s waist, snakes a hand back to touch himself, he needs this, one more. “Jon, I’m abo- _ah-_ ”

Jon sits straight again, presses his full weight onto Martin, working his own cock and grinding down. Within moments Martin is spilling into him. Jon doesn’t slow - he picks up speed, so, so close. Martin doesn’t stop him, though he must be oversensitive, just takes Jon’s hips and helps him move until eventually he follows.

He heard from Crew what it was like being struck by lightning, but it can’t compare to this, surely, this feeling - split open with Martin inside him, his skin too tight and too loose, every inch of muscle so tense he’s sure they’ll tear, his whole being on the cusp of shattering like stained glass. He’d thought he would die happy before with a kiss, but this is it, the moment of his ascension at the hands of Martin Blackwood.

When he comes back to his body, he’s slouched against Martin again. His chin rests against Jon’s head and he strokes his back in long, gentle passes. Jon is crying, tears rolling across his nose and down his cheek and onto Martin’s chest.

Martin has a bird tattooed on his shoulder. Jon doesn’t know what it means. Jon is going to die in two days. Martin is still inside him. His body hurts. The sheets on the cot haven’t been washed in weeks. The world is ending.

“Are you okay?” Martin asks.

Jon nods. “Are you?” 

Martin rests his lips against Jon’s head for a long moment. “This isn’t fair,” he says in a breaking voice. “This isn’t _fair.”_

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“You have to come back, I can’t do this and- ” He’s cut off by his own sobbing. Jon lifts himself off, lays beside Martin, cradles his head to his chest, lets him weep.

* * *

They leave late in the afternoon. Time enough to reach Yarmouth, have a night’s rest, and spend the next day watching the museum before the act itself.

No one is in the building this late. Neither Elias nor Melanie bother making the trek to the Institute to say goodbye. Tim and Daisy go directly to the car without coming inside. Basira only stays long enough to remind Martin of his job as though he didn’t come up with it. And then it’s just the two of them.

If Jon pulled the neck of Martin’s shirt he would see a bruise on his collarbone. If Martin lifted the hem of Jon’s, he would see fingerprints on his hips.

“I’ll talk to you Monday,” Martin says. If he wasn’t still hoarse from last night’s crying the tone would be convincing.

“Monday.” Because everything will be fine. Martin will survive Elias’s attention unharmed. Jon will watch the explosion from afar. Jon will come back and Martin will be here. Martin will be here and Jon will come back. He’ll walk in, give everyone a week off, and take Martin out somewhere nice. Monday.

Maybe it was wrong to do this now. Dangle a promise in front of the both of them, knowing they may never catch it. He hates this place. He hates Elias, and the Eye, and himself, and everything else sending him away, when he finally has something here to come back to.

Jon steps forward to put his arms around Martin’s neck, feels Martin’s move around him. He memorizes every place they touch to recount to himself on the drive.

“Please be careful, Jon, _please.”_

Jon pulls away enough to look him in the eye. “And you do the same. You’ve already promised you’ll see me Monday and I’ll be very put out if that’s not true.”

Martin doesn’t smile the way he had hoped. Instead, he kisses him, which is better. Soft, chaste, and cut short by the sound of a car horn blaring.

Jon steps back. Puts his hands in his pockets.

“Monday.”

“Monday.”

* * *

Jon doesn’t know where Tim is. He hasn’t seen Daisy or Basira since they collected their key and disappeared. He’s alone in a dingy two-person room in a less-than-midrange B&B on a creaky twin bed with only his statements and a little digital recorder for company.

He could call Martin. See how things are going there. But it hadn’t been _that_ long. Not even one date and he’s clinging, but Martin is easy to cling to. Once they actually manage a date? Jon can see himself becoming a nightmare, the sort of person he’d rolled his eyes at before. He’d be that person without shame, given the chance. Will be that person. Survive tomorrow, go on a date, refuse to stop holding Martin’s hand until they die of old age and their bones are too stuck in shape to unbend and they have to be put in the same grave. Or maybe that’s too far ahead. Survive tomorrow. 

He won’t bother Martin while he has his own plans in motion at the Institute, so he records. 

God, why do the fake ones take so much longer? They aren’t real, so how do they cram so much drivel on so little paper? He’d thought it would be better to stay away from the real ones lest he distract himself but he's beginning to regret that. Well, at least these were mostly coherent. Some of them were even well done, proper grammar and syntax, if simply written and easily debunked.

A creature with too much hair wakes up a woman each night, and she can’t move while it stands over her.

A grandmother convinced a monster is roaming her garden because of the little footprints surrounding her plum tree.

Teen hears growling in student flat in poorly kept building with old pipes.

Cashier thinks shoddy twenty year old till is haunted because drawer pops out without unlocking.

Young man forces his family to move house over and over, because he’s convinced someone is watching his wife from their closets and windows after the birth of their baby. They’d been doing fairly well, financially speaking, until he’d dragged them to the sixth little house in as many months, still able to swing for a separate bedroom and nursery this time, but soon it would be one room, then a studio, then in with her mother in Leeds, then the car.

“We couldn’t afford to keep doing it. I knew she would leave me if I didn’t stop making us move. So at the next place I started thinking. I put up those big heavy curtains that keep out the sun on the windows and taped the edges. I kept all the lights off once I did and not even a little sunlight got in so no one would be able to look in. There were no locks on the cl- ”

_Persons who become pregnant while malnourished face higher risk of mortality and lack nutritional stores to support an embryo, which may affect differentiation of cells between placental and foetal. 12% of infertility cases are due to weight outside of what medical professionals note as average._

Jon drops his recorder. God, it can never be helpful, can it? The statement is fake. The man needs help, but not the kind the Institute provides. What good is knowing about the mother’s health from a four year old statement when he can't do anything about it?

He sighs and looks for his place. He’ll have to clean it up once it’s on his laptop, try to make it sound like he didn’t toss his equipment halfway through. At least the fake statements were in plain language. Made it easier to start up without searching through the Beholding's nonsense.

“There were no locks on the closet doors but I could fix it this time. I bought stacks and stacks of bricks. Liz let it go because it was cheaper than leaving another place after three weeks. I looked it up. I worked out the numbers. £500 plus delivery for 390 bricks. Then once they got there I thought it would be easy to knock over so I bought some gravel. It's £75 for thirty bags of gravel. 2.8kg each brick, 25 each bag. I piled them up in front of the doors (little closet in our room, little closet in the baby’s, pantry). 130 bricks each, ten bags around the brick to hold them up. 364kg of brick, 250 of gravel, 614 per door. And I used my extra tape from the curtains to go around the edges so there was no peeking in the cracks. It took four days to get it sorted. Liz and Abby slept on the sofa before it was done and I watched to make sure nothing happened t-”

_Some links have been found between stress-induced immune reactions and failure of the embryo to implant._

Jon would think this woman is under some stress, with her husband mid-breakdown and a seven month old baby. He can’t imagine they were trying. Were they? With all this happening? Maybe she should have gone to her mother’s at the start, if he was pressuring her for another while he was filling their home with construction mater-

_Smokers have increased risks for conception delay and for both primary and secondary infertility, and may have a modest increase in risks for ectopic pregnancy and spontaneous abortion._

Useless. Is this just a lesson in what could have made their situation worse? Latched on to this poor family’s story to educate the archivist about human fertility? Can never tell him anything pertinent, just wasteful facts without application.

He gives up, packs his recorder and his papers back in his bag. Might as well see if he can sleep.

He’s only just turned out his light when the door opens. Tim doesn’t speak when he comes in, just takes his bag and heads to the bathroom. Jon pulls the blankets to his chin. Faces the wall. Closes his eyes. Pretends he doesn’t hear Tim climbing into his own bed.

He wishes he’d finished the statement. Found out if the husband ever got any help, or if there was a mundane cause that he’d hidden under supernatural belief, or if she did leave for her mother’s. He spends a moment imagining them, as they are now, four years later. The baby is a child, nearly ready to start school, and the wife is healthy and happy and doesn’t sleep on the sofa with someone standing watch over her, and the husband sees his doctor three times a year and his therapist once a week and he sees a counselor with his wife once a month and he knows the only eyes watching his family are his own.

Jon considers that he should get therapy, probably. They all should. That’s a date idea, there. He’ll take Martin to preemptive couples therapy so navigating the terrifying realities of unknowable horror doesn’t set them off on the wrong foot. Take some time to apologize for his initial behavior. Then maybe that Japanese place they’ve passed, something a little bit nicer than they normally do. And then maybe back to Martin’s because Jon still lives in the Institute after not paying rent while kidnapped. Once on the cot is enough. Unless things work out and maybe the archives are a little empty someday? No. He’s getting ahead of himself. Survive tomorrow. A nice date in a nice place. Then maybe illicit office rendezvous.

No. Survive tomorrow.

_The average chance of conception between a healthy young couple after one sex act without protection is approximately 5% without considering at which point in the cycle the act occurs, but increase to approximately 25% when confirmed to be one to two days before ovulation. Other factors such as stress, weight, and tobacco use may affect this rate._

Of course.

Of course. It would try to taunt him about this. Five percent, it said. Other factors. It’s not an issue. It’s trying to throw him off. Five percent lowered by other factors to make it practically nothing. His cycle has been an absolute mess after the last few months anyways. Negligible. Just a last minute jab at his psyche.

_Despite less than ideal circumstances, Head Archivist Jonathan Sims’s overall health, including reproductive, is not an insurmountable obstacle for conception. An ovarian follicle will rupture, releasing an oocyte to be fertilized, in six hours, roughly 25.25 hours after Archival Assistant Martin Blackwood ej-_

This is what it’s like to die. Jon is certain of it. He won’t have to wait for tomorrow, it’s come for him in his little twin size bed. His heart is going to pop. His throat is closing. His lungs are shriveling to nothing. The wall is so close and so far and fading black at the edges.

He doesn’t notice he’s hyperventilating until the other lamp clicks on and Tim sits up to look at him. Jon tries to stay calm. Stay calm, everything’s fine, it’s just trying to provoke him. It’s fine. It’s fine. He thinks he’s managing until he hears the blankets move on the other bed.

Before Tim can say anything, Jon bolts for the bathroom and locks the door behind him, and of course he's followed.

“Jon, what was that?”

He doesn’t answer. He’s going to be sick, he’s sure of it, but nothing comes up, just more deep breaths that never manage to bring in any air.

"Open the door," Tim says, working up to a shout. The thin door rattles in the frame. "I know what you're doing."

Jon slides to the floor between the small shower stall and the sink. Is that his voice, making that sound? The soft keening above the shaking of the door, the gasping, the wailing, the heaving? How is there air left in him to make these noises, when his chest has already collapsed like a dying star and swallowed the rest of him up?

Stop. Stop. Think about it. Twenty-five percent. One in four. It's fine. It's fine.

But if he is? He should call Martin. No, he shouldn't. What good would it do? Martin would beg him to come back, let the others handle it. He can't leave them, not if this damned _gift_ of his may help. If he tells Martin then stays, if he dies, what has he done then? Offered Martin his love on a platter, then snatched it all away, shown him a future where each of them holds a little hand engulfed in flames and broken plastic.

Tim is still shouting. They're going to get complaints if he keeps up.

He’ll tell him when he gets back. No he won’t. He’ll wait, let it linger, tests can work in four weeks nowadays. He can wait four weeks. If he lives through tomorrow. If he lives through tomorrow, he’ll buy a test or two, find out for certain, tell Martin.

It’s a miracle he hasn’t knocked through the door.

And what then? If he is? Just tell Martin they're going to be parents? Congratulations, we haven't been on a single date, I'm carrying your child, sorry if it's a shock, I hadn’t been taking any sort of birth control and I honestly thought it just wouldn't come up.

At least Tim is quiet now. Hopefully not because he's gotten a better idea of how to get in.

Does Martin even want children? He'd been so scared of ending up like his parents, had said as much over late dinners of leftover takeaway. Would he rather not have them at all? Or try to do better, raise them how he wished he had been raised? The two of them standing on the thin scraps of their own childhoods to make their baby’s all it could be?

Stop.

Don't get too far ahead. Survive tomorrow. Take a test. Tell him. Plan from there, together.

No.

Survive tomorrow.

* * *

He knows he has to leave the bathroom eventually, so he does. Tim is waiting in the little chair, pulled over to watch the door.

"You mind sharing with the rest of us?"

Jon ignores him. He turns to his half of the room, hoping for even an hour of rest.

When the hand closes around his wrist, it's a dozen plastic palms, Daisy's callused fingers, Jude melting his skin, Elias, always too familiar but distant enough for deniability.

Jon shoves Tim and scrambles away, falling to the floor, skittering into a corner. He holds his wrist in his other hand, presses them both to his chest, chokes on the taste of wax and gravedirt and ozone. He's tired. He's tired.

Tim steps back, looks at him with a blank face. Jon wishes he knew what he’s thinking, though he could guess - _pitiful Jon, pathetic Jon, throwing a tantrum over nothing._ They were never friends, never more than mostly-friendly coworkers, but he never looked at him like this, even when Jon was being a prick, as though he isn’t worth the effort of feeling anything at all. Jon wants to scream, hit him, tear the hair from his scalp so he knows how this hurts, anything that may make him understand, _I was right, I was right, I'm sorry, I didn't take her from you, there were two killers among us the whole time, I was right, I was right, I'm sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry._

"If you're getting information we have the right to know. If it’s going to change anything tomorrow you don’t get to keep secrets. This isn’t the time for whatever paranoid bullshit you have going on."

He’s tired. He's so fucking tired, all the time, he can't remember the last time he wasn't. And Jon is a bad liar, but he's so tired. Too tired to try, too tired to spin together a story like Martin can in seconds, tired enough to lie anyways. So he says the first thing he can think of.

"No one told me how my parents died. I was too young to remember and I never wanted to find out. The Eye wanted me to know in detail before I join them."

That's the trick to losing your stutter, then, being existentially exhausted.

Tim doesn't respond. He doesn't soften, but he doesn't keep pushing. He does slam the chair back into its place, climb into his own bed, and leave Jon to turn out the light.

_Freckles stem from a variation of the MC1R gene, responsible for hair color and skin tone, and are considered a dominant trait._

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two

When he wakes up, he doesn’t have anywhere to go. He’s a corpse. Corpses don’t have homes. No one he knows likes him enough to invite him to theirs. At least no one who showed up before they let him check out. In fact, they all seem actively upset that he isn't still dead.

Basira brings him to the Institute. Half his things were there anyways, what hadn’t been thrown out when he was evicted while missing. His cot appears to have clean sheets, even though there’s a bit of dust over them. He doesn’t know if it’s been used. He doesn’t care. He paid for it so he’ll be sleeping on it. His hair is gone, shaved away for the wires to be attached, and he already knows he’ll hate the scratch of the cheap pillowcase against his scalp.

He’s been dead - asleep? - for six months. He came back. Martin wasn’t there. Martin wasn’t there, but Jon came back. Jon’s been asleep for six months. 

It’s been six months and his stomach is still caved in as before. One less thing to think about, at least. No more statistics forced into him. No explaining himself for allowing it to happen.

He crawls onto the cot and spends another sixteen hours terrorizing statement givers. Before he falls asleep, Jon imagines what it would be like, living in a world where he could climb into an already-warm bed and smell Martin’s aftershave and feel a soft body with gentle hands reaching for his own.

* * *

Jon is tired. He’s spotting, and bloated on top of that. Melanie put a scalpel through his shoulder, even though it was Basira’s idea to do surgery and Basira’s idea to sneak around about it and Basira’s idea to abandon her, still-bleeding, in the tunnels. He’s thrown up three times today, before the scalpel, even. He thinks he has a fever. He’s tired.

Martin is _too busy_ with _Peter Lukas._ Jon had tried, in their moment together, to tell him, but it stuck in his mouth, his throat, his lungs. The Eye hasn’t mentioned it again. Jon doesn’t need it to. A friend of Georgie’s had stopped in last year, mentioned how she knew, the fatigue, the discharge, the breast tenderness, and Jon had half-listened from the guest room for something to do.

He could find out for sure. If he’d gone to A&E instead of his office they may have made him take a test. They tried to before stitching up Michael’s stab wound. They’re not that expensive from the shop anyways.

Jon doesn’t think about it. He checks again, makes sure the gash hasn’t reopened even though it's nearly closed already. He’s grateful for the sports bra he’d swiped from Melanie’s clean laundry and that she’d stabbed through the strap instead of slicing across, leaving enough intact to hold the gauze in place. Grateful for the other one he’d taken, too, out of spite after she’d tried to smash his head with an expertly thrown paper weight, so he has one to wear later while he washes the blood out. 

Small favors. Maybe sometimes good things do happen.

* * *

“Dunno. Doesn’t hurt me.”

Jared Hopworth is wrist-deep in Jon's chest. It does hurt. Jared isn’t being straightforward about it, touching and holding and poking around in parts that aren’t his concern. Eventually he decides on the pieces he wants, tears a rib out and drops it in Jon’s shaking hand.

“That’s yours. What’s it for?”

Not your business. “Um. A- A- an anchor.”

Jared shoves his hand back, lower this time. He stops.

"Who's this then, Archivist?"

He doesn't wait for an answer, just moves up to the right area. Jon hates him. He puts it to the side. Focus. Daisy. Daisy. He can do this, for Basira, show her he’s a monster but he can be something else, too, bring back someone she needs, someone he dragged into this, whatever it takes, so that somebody, _anybody_ will look at him like a person instead of a tool to be used until it’s ruined and tossed out.

Jared keeps digging until he's found what he needs - snatches another rib, complains about it, walks away and lets Jon collapse.

Helen winks at him after he wakes up. Says, “I think we’ll all be much happier this way. While I’m here, though, Archivist - if you’re looking to expand, someplace with a little more room to grow, I’ve still got my license.” Melanie glares between them. Neither explain.

Jon leaves the tunnels. Who's this, it isn't anyone, it isn't happening. He intends to take a nap. He sleeps through the night.

And then, he’s in a coffin, the way he should have been in the first place, and none of it matters. 

* * *

He doesn’t know why he bothers to take the tests. It’s not as though he can’t tell. He hasn’t drastically increased his caloric intake, so there’s only one real explanation for the sudden expansion of his waistline. Only so many ways he can brush off the little swell that had appeared almost overnight. It wouldn’t be obvious if not for how miserably thin he is now.

Still.

Jon spends an hour and a half crossing the city, until he's far enough no one should recognize him. Six tests, pads for if the spotting doesn't stop, and three little bags of chocolate coated toffees because it’s the only treat his grandmother kept around and he knows he has a sweet tooth and they’re the one thing he’s certain he can eat when he’s stressed. He can’t keep down much more than statements these days, but he can try.

He breaks open the boxes outside the shop, stuffs the tests in his pockets and the packages in the bin, just in case.

By midnight, they’re all lined up on the sink of the archive’s little one-person bathroom.

The result doesn’t matter. It won’t last. Everything that had been shoved into his head says so. He hasn’t been smoking, but the stress, malnourishment, is there research on acting as an unwilling vector for concepts beyond human understanding and their effects on gestation? It can’t _help._ The way the Eye made it sound, it’s a toss up which one of them dies first and takes the other down.

He wants Martin. He doesn’t know what he would think about the situation, but before this, who he was without Peter Lukas, _that_ Martin would have held his hand while they waited. Jon thinks it wouldn’t hurt so much with a hand to hold. 

But he promised. No interference. Martin can work for who he likes. Not Jon’s business, apparently. Not anymore. _It’s better this way._ Won’t listen to him. Laughs when he tells him he’s missed. Can’t talk at all, not even long enough for Jon to tell him about -

He could look. See what they’re doing, what it is that Martin can’t get out of. How to help him. How to bring him back. He could look and find out what Martin needs to come back to him, so he does.

It doesn’t work.

Jon grips the sink for support, sending his tests scattering to the ground. He tries to stay upright, but the electric misery in his eyes quickly overcomes the rest of his body. Soon enough he joins his tests on the floor. He can see four of their faces from where his head rests. His hair is still too short to be a good cushion. He doesn’t need to look at the result. He knows. He isn’t surprised. That doesn’t make it easier.

Positive, positive, positive, positive.

* * *

“And I don’t want to lose anyone else, so if I can maybe - stop that happening, and the only danger is to...” Well. He swallows back what he wants to say. “...to me, I - I’ll do it in a heartbeat.”

Daisy doesn’t mention it. Likely assumes it’s his usual stutter flaring up in the face of feelings. She keeps talking. Pushes for more. Has the gall to be shocked he would think she might have murdered him in there - _you thought I was gonna kill you,_ as though she hadn’t already done it once, hadn’t told him she’d planned to do it again after the Unknowing. She tries to make him feel better about Martin being gone, as though anything could dull that hurt. Admits that it's not his -

She’s the only one to say that, he thinks. Since the beginning. That he didn’t do this. That they made choices of their own. Each name scrawled on an employment contract was in the bearer’s hand.

Even when he asked Tim and Sasha he’d expected them to laugh and refuse - they were friendly, yes, but they weren’t friends, just because they had adjoining desks and shared a table for lunch, were they? They chose. _They_ chose, with the same knowledge he had, just in search of a little pay raise and freedom from the busy pen upstairs. Poor Martin, content with his work in the library, dragged in as collateral damage.

The offer of absolution is heavy. He doesn’t think he can bear that weight. A flap of one wing and a hurricane tears whole coastlines to shreds. Coastlines don’t choose hurricanes, and hurricanes don’t choose to spin, just tools of a higher power, an all-knowing moth circling a light outside their understanding. Maybe they did choose. He chose, too.

When he looks at her his body aches. Her voice is a flimsy spade in rocky soil. Now, without the muscle, they’re nearly the same size. Her hair is long, nearly to her waist, and his doesn’t even reach his chin, where it had been before. She sits with her limbs wide, as though reminding herself she can. He hates her. He hates her. She says it’s not his fault. 

She convinces him to go for drinks.

He sips his water while Daisy and Basira half-plan the next steps. He daydreams about Martin in the booth next to him, their thighs pressed together, as normal people complaining about normal jobs, another world where Jon wears Martin’s clothes because they’re offered, not because they’ve been abandoned in storage and they can hide how much Jon is growing. One where they’re already thinking of names and nursery decoration.

He orders something, big enough to share, so he can practice shoving food in his mouth again. It’s been a long time since he’s eaten more than the minimum his body needs. He doesn’t like it. He does it anyway. The Eye had been clear about the effects of undernourishment.

He makes a choice.

* * *

Ordered for delivery to the Institute, direct recipient signature required: eight books on pregnancy, two books on newborn development, six books that cover both, three books on healthy eating habits, one incredibly extensive book of baby names, a hefty spiral bound book (to take rough notes in), a nice little moleskine (replaced in the cart at the last minute with a larger version, to copy down the notes again in neat, organized lines now that his penmanship is improving using his burned hand), a pack of pens (to use in the moleskine, a good bit nicer than his usual stock, and he promises himself he won’t chew these), and four bags of chocolate coated toffees (that he swears he won’t finish in the span of a week this time).

* * *

Jon had been working on a way to mention it, he really had; not as though he could send out a card or happy text and expect congratulations like anyone else. At some point, it would be too obvious to hide under baggy cardigans. Even in the past two weeks or so he’s gotten bigger, and his newfound campaign to put on weight for the baby’s sake has been effective to boot. If they hadn’t noticed his chest is no longer nearly-flat and his cheeks are filling out, they would have to notice when he’s forced into maternity clothes. 

It’s hard. He doesn’t know what to say, or how much to say, or how to explain it. They’ll push, surely, thinking he’s hiding some great secret.

And it’s not that he’s embarrassed, never that - he’s a man, and regardless of the configuration this is a man’s body. He fought tooth and nail to build this body until it became one he could live in. And he's proud of it in a quiet, private way, that he’s a man of his own making and his body can do things that many men can’t. There’s no shame in him for the way he is. It’s just that it’s none of their business. He doesn’t think about what anyone else looks like under their clothes and it’s no one’s concern what’s under his. Then he has to tell them he’s pregnant, and he has a body that can do that, and they’ll know how he used that body to make it happen, and the only people he wants to know any of that are Martin and himself because it’s _theirs,_ that night should belong to no one else. But now it’s going to be subject to the public opinion of people who already thought they had the right to speculate on what he and Martin had done together.

And with that in mind, maybe they already know. Maybe Georgie already told Melanie about that, too, and the tapes just didn’t bother to let him in on that conversation.

In the same vein, he'll have to navigate the probing questions about how he _just… doesn’t_. Try not to tear his skin off in rage at Georgie for spreading it around, as if to paint him as prim and prudish Jon who can’t follow through, punish him for not walking out of the bear trap crushing his leg, outing him to people who would have happily seen him dead, who still might. He’ll be forced to swallow the urge to tell them all the ugly sides of her she likes to pretend don’t exist because his secrets are easier to bare.

Talk about how he could let this happen, who it -

Cut all that and he can manage it, maybe. Bullet points. They don’t need the whole story. Just the essentials.

There. That’s a plan. He’ll get around to it. Tomorrow. Tomorrow, maybe the day after.

Jon’s plans don’t often work.

He’d asked for the photo after his scan. Paid extra for multiple copies. The technician was kind. She was the closest he could find on various forums that had treated transgender men, knew how to conduct the appointment with tact and not slip into _mother_ out of habit based on the most frequent type of patient. She offered him well-needed tissues when he heard a heartbeat. Wrote down remedies for little ills that come with the territory, ways to ease his discomfort. Hadn’t asked why he was there alone or if anyone would be joining them. If he’d been forced to say no he wouldn’t have made it through. She was kind, and patient, and let him cry, and her name was Amelia.

He's kept his little pictures tucked in his pillowcase for the last six days, save two.

One copy is taped carefully to the inside cover of his notebook.

The other is left in reach on the box he uses as a bedside table, underneath a few loose papers for camouflage. He likes to hold it while he sleeps, burn the image into his eyes before he drifts off, focus on it while he acts as tormentor to the damned who once came begging for clemency. 

There are better ways for the conversation to start than Basira asking, “What is that?” when she catches him one morning before he wakes up. Once he understands the question, he considers shredding the picture; he has nine more after inexpertly lying about a big family to justify himself, this one can be sacrificed.

Basira moves faster than the thought.

“What the fuck is this, Jon?” She turns it and holds it up to his face as though he didn’t already know. It’s fairly obvious, he thinks, what with how it’s shaped like a baby and all that. Then he considers that they don’t know, so it appears that he’s just a recently reanimated monster sleeping with a picture of an unborn child and that isn’t a good look. But also maybe the shouting isn’t necessary, so who’s really wrong here?

Jon sits up and shoves her hand away, careful to avoid the photo even though she’s already crumpled it in her grip. He doesn’t want to do it like this. The volume isn’t needed. His head is throbbing from the echoes of Dr. Elliot’s shouting. He’s not gotten over his queasiness yet and mornings are the worst for it, as stereotyped. The hormones have him waking up rolling his hips into nothing most days, and now she’s here he can’t do anything about it. There’s nothing that’s conducive to productive conversation.

Not any way out, though, not now. God, this _is_ how they’re doing it then.

“I got it from my sonographer. And they aren’t free, so if you could be gentle I would appreciate it.” She doesn’t need to know about the extras.

She looks it over for herself. Hospital name printed at the top, triangle of grey, a little profile - one that had been cooed over by the technician, _being so good for your picture, letting Dad see you,_ and sent Jon into tears again _._

“So why exactly are you seeing a sonographer?” As though she hasn’t put it together. Just to rub it in. Just to make him say it.

Fine. If she wants to be obtuse, he can play along. “Because it’s recommended between eight and eleven weeks for a dating scan but I’ve been busy, so I had to wait for thirteen.”

She clenches her fist, obviously unhappy with his dry response, wrinkling the photo further.

“We’re having a meeting.” And she storms out, his picture still in hand, and slams the door shut behind her.

* * *

They all seem very content to argue without his input.

He’s trying to listen. It all keeps spinning around in his head like water down a drain. He hears the words and they don’t all connect but he’s piecing it together, he thinks. One says it’s a liability - another argues if anyone is dead weight it’s the one sitting here that can’t be alone for five minutes. Then it’s a distraction - someone says so is going out for drinks and Melanie sneaking around with that girl. What if it isn’t human - neither am I, says Daisy. Neither is Helen and they seem chummy enough with her. Neither are they, probably, come to think of it, bloody bullet, Capital-D-Detective. What, does he expect to raise it in the Archives - someone points out they’re all living in subterranean tunnels so there isn’t much moral high ground to take either way. When Basira mentions twenty-five weeks, Melanie puts her foot down, _we aren’t the ones who get to make that choice._ Fine, then they can’t tell anyone, _anyone,_ not a soul about this until they can’t keep it quiet - and Jon can’t disagree, not if this is the reaction he gets from his supposed allies.

He doesn’t have to say a thing, just try to keep up, until one of them is finally brave enough to ask.

Basira still hasn’t let go of his picture. It tears, just a bit, when she crosses her arms and leans back in her chair.

Jon thinks that maybe he hates her, too. If not yesterday, then today, after this. He thought they might have been friends, once, or something like it. In another life. 

“If this is happening, we need to know what we’re dealing with. Whose is it?”

“No.”

“What do you mean _no?”_

“I mean we’re not going into it.” Oh, good. He’d hoped to make it out of this without crying, but seems dreams don’t come true. “It doesn’t matter. It’s not your business.”

“If it’s someone who’s going to be an issue, then I think it is.”

“It’s not.” He pulls his cardigan tighter around himself as though she doesn’t already know what’s there.

He doesn’t mean to listen, but her head is so loud, the image of himself in his office chair hunched around the little swell of his middle, looking ragged and worn and so, so scared. She remembers stomping in from the next room over to tell Tim to shut up because he kept shouting for Jon to come out of the bathroom, and thinking their little spat isn’t her problem. That man she’d been told about, hovering over him in his hospital bed, no one else around, nervous and strange and content to run off when confronted. Elias, once their reality came to light, brushing his fingers over Jon’s cheek or wrist or shoulder or waist to watch him shy away.

She can’t think that, place that film over this last little light he has to follow.

“Nothing so insidious as what you seem to believe.”

Basira sits up straight. His picture tears again when she smacks her hands to her knees. “ _Don’t_ listen to -”

“Then don’t project it, god, you’re practically screaming -”

“ _I’m_ not doing -”

“Then you’ll have to forgive me for slipping.” Jon hopes she hears it in his voice, how much he hates her right now, but he doesn’t think she'll find it under all the tears. “I think I’m _just a bit worked up_ after spending the past two hours listening to all the reasons you want me to _get rid of my baby._ And I understand why you’re looking for something, I know you can’t care about anyone unless you can prove they’re a victim. But this isn’t something that was done to me. The act was consensual, even if the outcome was unexpected. It happened, and I wanted it, and now this is happening and I won’t give it up. It’s _mine.”_

Nothing.

Jon doesn’t know why she’s quiet. If she’s angry at him for trying to fight back, or happy he admitted to listening, even unintentionally, or maybe, maybe, somewhere, a little guilty for ruining his fucking photo and then bringing up fucking abortion laws. Maybe for not asking, not even once in this whole waste of two goddamn hours, if this is something he wants, just listing all the reasons they should take it away.

Jon decides to go back to bed. He slams the door to his office, because if everyone else can do it, so can he. No one stops him.

* * *

The nice part about spending six months comatose is that no one seemed to notice his pay was still being deposited. He’s not a wealthy man, not by any means, but with six months salary dropped in his lap, no real expenses past food and a phone bill, on top of what money he had saved after he was evicted last year? He can pretend, for a little while. Not too much, though. He’ll have to have a place to go eventually, somewhere he can set up a crib at the very least, so he has to be somewhat prudent in his spending.

But sometimes he can have something nice.

He’s bought himself clothes. Not many, as it seems masculine apparel isn’t the usual preference for maternity wear. He only found a few pairs of jeans that didn’t immediately scream _these are for women specifically,_ and he isn’t yet comfortable with anything visibly made with the stereotypical women’s body in mind, even now that he’s grown up and coming to an agreement with his body. So he had snatched up the least feminine things he could get - there’s only so far a rubber band can stretch to hold his old trousers on and it’s getting close to the limit.

There are a dozen or so simple maternity tee shirts waiting at the Institute, but for now he’s content enough with the stash of Martin’s clothes he’d unearthed in storage - half his wardrobe never left, it seems. They’re still far too big, but the bulky knits he hoarded for the colder months came in handy. Jon can’t fully disguise the shape of his belly, not at seventeen weeks, but with a few layers he might pass it off as a gut from heavy drinking when he has to leave. The red face and sweating from those multiple layers in late May might help with the look.

It’s the food that takes most of his money, though. He’s put in a lot of effort to reach a ‘healthy weight’ as determined by multiple baby books and websites, and tries to keep his diet varied and nutrient rich. It’s more than he’s eaten in years, and far nicer as well. Highly reviewed protein bars to accompany his prenatal vitamins each morning. Fancy little freshly made pre-packaged grain bowls promising only the highest quality vegetables on top. Salads with tofu or lean cuts of chicken and a half-dozen colors of leaves and another half-dozen seeds and tree nuts. Fruit medleys stacked high, no sugars no additives no preservatives. Cup after cup after cup after cup of water until he’s checked off the daily recommended on his notepad.

Every few days for the last month or so, he’s taken himself to a bakery, one with a little cafe. It’s a bit of a walk, nearly twenty minutes - but why not, isn’t like anyone is enforcing the rules for lunch times in the Archives anymore, and his books say exercise is important. The place is nice enough, the food is good, and best he can tell healthy enough for both of them. He doesn’t care for most tastes anymore but fresh sourdough sandwiches and the fancy toffee-something-or-other drink are siren calls he can’t resist. Mostly, though, he likes the baristas, with their little striped flags pinned to their aprons, pronouns on their name tags, ability to not pry or stare if he loses a cardigan or two while he eats.

It’s nice out, a bit chilly, so he’s not overheating on the way. He’s a bit later than normal so not much foot traffic. Nothing to distract him from considering his order. His usual gaudy little latte, decaf, because he had tea already this morning. Maybe turkey for his sandwich today. But the turkey never keeps him full, and he’s _hungry._ Seems breakfast didn’t do much good. Maybe a treat as well, then. They’d had those white chocolate cranberry scones last time, he remembers thinking they sounded nice, if out of season. He’s been staying on course, a little extra sugar won’t hurt - maybe one with lunch, a couple to take back and stash in his office if they’re any good.

Jon makes it to the corporate-looking place, all glass and stainless steel, the one he’s never tried because of the clientele, about ten minutes into his walk. When he glances through the window he feels it.

He’s hungry.

He shouldn’t. There are statements at the Institute. Plenty of them. Centuries, even.

He shouldn’t.

He does, the way one does in a dream, only half aware that he’s even made a decision. Sits. Watches. Consumes.

When it’s over he thanks her. It’s the only thing he can think to do. He isn’t hungry anymore.

* * *

The hallways are always a nightmare, but especially at twenty weeks pregnant after absorbing a dying star that was intended to destroy the world because you know you’re far too powerful for something so trivial to kill you. He’s tired. Even after nearly twelve hours of sleep and a day of doing nothing, he’s tired.

No one’s needed him so far, at least. Basira’s just now up from a nap, Melanie’s been watching classic westerns instead of working all day, and Daisy disappeared out the door a few minutes ago.

Is it too early to go back to bed? Basira had a nap and he didn’t, so if he just goes to bed three hours early it evens out to the same sleep time overall. Can’t be judged too harshly for that, then. It’s settled. He’ll check that everything’s fine once Daisy gets back then turn in early.

When she comes in, he hears her telling Basira that Martin ran her out of his office.

At first, he’s jealous. At least she got to _see him._ Any time he’s tried for months now there’s been nothing, only an empty room and a chill in the air. Can’t even listen to his tapes because they were confiscated the second they were found - they’d caught him not a minute into the first, already bawling at Martin’s voice, and whisked them away for safekeeping.

Then, he’s a bit relieved. Martin’s alive, he’s alright. Even if he’s not speaking to Jon anymore, he’s okay. Jon can trust Martin, but he doesn’t trust Lukas not to disappear him like the others. But he’s alive. He’s _alive._

Then he’s a whole lot of _something_ that he can’t name.

After a few moments he decides that feeling is angry. He felt his baby kick today. He cried for an hour and he couldn’t tell anyone because no one besides him cares that his baby kicked and he felt it for the very first time and he had to write it in his stupid timeline in his stupid notebook to celebrate, by himself. And the last time they spoke, Martin couldn’t stand to look at him long enough to even find out. Jon couldn’t tell him they’re going to have a baby - or _Jon_ is going to have a baby, it seems - because _Peter Lukas_ was too important. He’s angry. No, he’s livid, furious, irate, incensed, a thousand other words that still won’t cover this feeling.

And since it’s the first time he knows exactly where Martin is in a good long while, he decides it’s the perfect moment to make a little announcement.

So he digs in his pillowcase, throws off his cardigan to put his whole swollen stomach on display, and aims for the stairs.

It’s obvious that he’s going to do something drastic when he comes out without any layers. All three of his so-called assistants follow, asking what he’s up to, surely convinced it’s something malicious, especially when it becomes clear where he’s headed. Let them follow. Basira was so concerned about the other parent, let her find out now. Bring their office gossip to fruition.

Daisy starts to skitter around him, but she can’t catch up on weakened legs. “Jon, I don’t think he’s up for -“

“I don’t care.” He’s so slow now, heavy and off-balance and _slow_. Were there always this many stairs? Just one more flight. “I need to see him.”

When they finally reach the office, she catches him, tries to hold the door shut, says, “Really, Jon, he didn’t -”

But she’s weak, now, and he’s furious, and she isn’t enough to keep him opening the door anyways.

And there he is.

There he is, like he’d promised so long ago, he’s here, and Jon came back. And there’s nothing for it but to tell him.

“I’m pregnant.”

There.

He’s been told.

As though he wouldn’t be able to figure it out, with Jon in his wretched maternity jeans and one of Martin’s old shirts.

Martin doesn’t say anything. Jon doesn’t know what that face means. Nothing good, he would imagine, but Jon hasn’t felt anything good for a long time either.

“Hadn’t thought it was something we’d need to worry about. Since the Eye decided to keep me frozen it didn’t take until I woke up. I figured you have the right to know, but it’s been a bit troublesome reaching you.” He moves to the desk, god, he’s close enough to touch, and leaves a sonogram on top of the stack of HR forms. “Got an extra for you, just in case you were bothered about it. Due in early November, I suppose you can send me an email if you want any input. Sorry to interrupt, I’m sure you were busy.”

Jon doesn’t wait for an answer. He doesn’t know if he’d even get one. Instead, he makes his trek again, back down to the basement, and throws up every expensive lean-protein-ancient-grain-sugar-free bite he’s eaten all day.

* * *

He’s tired of the whispering. He’s tired in general, thinks he may never be not tired again, but the whispering is what’s getting him right now. Planning and plotting right outside his office.

He doesn’t want to listen, but there are only so many statements he can read in a day, and they won’t let him out of this goddamn basement, not without a chaperone, and even then he’s been brushed off nearly every time he asks someone to escort him out. He’s taken to having groceries delivered every few days, just before Rosie usually comes in. He walks laps in the deep archives to get his exercise instead of the path to his little cafe. He’s already cancelled his next appointment for an ultrasound, didn’t bother asking. He wanted another photo, and to ask Amelia if she had any other tricks up her sleeve to get him through. His ankles are swelling and his back is sore and his breasts had never really stopped feeling vaguely unpleasant and he’s had horribly itchy stretch marks for almost six weeks and he can’t exactly handle lotion to soothe it.

It doesn’t matter. Even if he could leave, they do this all the time. He would end up nearby eventually and they aren’t _that_ quiet, a few words from one of these conversations are bound to be audible. Probably think he’s asleep. And the doors are thin on top of that. Honestly, it would be harder to avoid eavesdropping.

It could be about anything at this point. Taking statements, as though they don’t worship Gertrude for her _pragmatism_ then threaten to _put him down_ in the same breath. His relative humanity, despite Helen popping in for a chat twice a day, still licking blood off her fingers. Which ritual is coming up next, and the best way to justify his status as local monstrosity when it suits their needs.

At least he thinks, until he hears Daisy say _early November._

He moves to the door, tries to be silent despite his size and poor balance, and listens.

_About three months - someone else - the one from that church, Agnes - fit to raise it if it’s human?_

Ah.

Of course.

Jon isn’t sure if he’s surprised.

No.

Mostly he isn’t.

Shouldn’t be, at least. Not as though they’d been shy about their concerns. Not as though they’d pulled their punches in terms of death threats, not unless Daisy came around, and then it's just to keep her from relapsing until it’s useful. He’d known, in an abstract sense, that killing him wouldn’t _just_ kill him. Not something he thought about often for his own mental health. But there had always been hope, no bigger than a poppy seed, that they could let him try to... to get better, find a way to survive on old statements, move out of his office and into a place with enough room for two, throw off the years of terror settled over his shoulders. If not for his sake, for the baby's.

But they’d read about Agnes, too. Knew the risks of a ready-born avatar. A ritual from birth. A many-eyed beast ripe for plucking when Elias finally escapes.

He understands, in this moment, how an animal can be driven to tear its body apart to escape. He could do it, too. Crack his bones between his own teeth before turning them on anything that dares come near. Hold his baby to his chest with bloody, broken fingers.

Jon has nowhere to go. Maybe his little cafe, on the bulletin board with the advertisements for local bands and queer support groups, has a flyer for shelters that take people like him - the scars could tell a story without him saying a word, maybe it would be enough. Or Amelia, who hadn’t batted an eye when he walked in for a scan in his state, knows someplace. No other choices, he’ll skip from hotel to hotel every night until he has nothing left.

He can be ready to run, if he can’t be sure where he’ll go. He has his old leather shoulder bag - chargers, notebook, his favorite of the baby book, vitamins, just barely fits two boxes worth of protein bars to ration, just in case. He has three canvas shopping bags that he hasn’t been able to use in weeks. Two for clothes, one for statements, as many as it will hold. 

Maybe he can’t get him back. Maybe Peter Lukas won.

He still has his baby. Anyone who tries to change that he’ll devour raw.

He hopes Martin will miss him, too.

* * *

He doesn’t remember much. It was about Gerry, he’s sure, not anything else they’d come after him for. Daisy making threats. Daisy collapsing. Daisy giving him a moment before they found Basira, so he could break down at what he nearly lost.

He does remember the knife. How it dragged across his throat. How Herbert sliced through Martin’s shirt, left a long thin cut across the top of his stomach once they noticed him hunched round his belly and holding the heaviest of his baby books open against it as a feeble shield. How it still bled so much despite how shallow it was and how quickly it healed, enough to ruin the pages pressed against him. How the baby's hiccups beat out of rhythm with his heart.

Daisy stopped them. If nothing else, he’s alive, his baby’s alive.

Jon will wake up tomorrow and cradle his stomach and think about the bags packed under his cot. He changed his name once. He can change it again. Find a way to take statements, a way to get them without ruining the life of the giver. Find a job that won't ask for a reference before his savings run out. Spend a few years in a cheap studio before his baby is old enough to remember struggling. Make a little life for two. A happy life.

The baby can hear him now, so he whispers his plans to his belly and pretends they'll come true.

* * *

Jon is wheezing when he reaches the top floor. He’s been walking lap after lap after lap, so he chooses to believe it’s more due to the entire person limiting his lung capacity instead of his own physical shortcomings.

It’s fine. He would have crawled up the stairs at this point. Anything to get here. Anything to find Martin and get out.

And he’s there, he’s there, Jon can hear him talking - whatever it is, it can’t be important, not compared to this.

“Martin -” When Jon flings the door open, Martin knocks a stapler to the floor. He looks as though he’s just stood up, still half hunched over his desk.

“Oh - Jon! God, don’t _do_ that!”

“Sorry, I just…” Jon leans against the doorframe for a second, trying to catch his breath.

“It’s fine, you just surprised me, that’s - are you alright?” He won't look at Jon. He’s focused on the little recorder sat on the corner of his desk. Jon wants to smash it.

“Oh, uh. Fine. Um. I… Sore, lot of practice contractions. Don’t really _hurt_ but the muscles aren’t used to the work. Never stops kicking. Hard to get comfortable enough to sleep.” Maybe he doesn’t care about that. Does he? Does he want to hear it? Or is he worried about Jon’s eating habits? “I um, I get weak. Hungry, I guess. Sort of. I’ve been trying to avoid, being, um- sticking to old statements? Thank you for your little intervention, by the way.”

Martin huffs, almost looks at him, turns back to the recorder before he does. “I wouldn’t have to if you’d hadn’t been -”

“Yes, no, I know, I know, I’m sorry, that didn’t come out right - honestly, thank you. It’s been hell, but I... I did need to hear it.”

“Oh, um.” Martin nods, turns his gaze to the bland visitors’ chairs across from his desk that likely never see use. Still won’t look at Jon. “Uh, good. Are the others... helping?

Jon presses a hand to the side of his belly where a foot has decided to test the limits of its containment. “They’ve been keeping a... very close eye on us. Me.” God, he’s getting distracted. Back to the point. This is it. This is _it._ “Well, that’s not important - no, well, it is important, but it’s not why I’m here, I -”

“Jon. Calm down. What do you want?”

He _wants_ to start over in August and call Martin from the bathroom of the B&B. He wants to tear Peter Lukas’s skin off with his own hands. He wants to go to his little cafe. He wants a mother to call for advice when he looks for nursing bras so he doesn’t get so overwhelmed he abandons the idea even though all of his sports bras have been just this side of too tight for weeks and on days they’re too much he’s left crossing his arms to hold things in place when anyone needs to talk to him. He wants a normal archiving job where he could fall in love with a coworker and their biggest concern would be navigating both of them taking paternity leave at the same time. He wants one of those stupid giant pillows to keep him in place while he sleeps so he doesn’t have to use spare clothes to support his stomach.

Jon doesn’t get what he wants, usually. He’ll make do with whatever he can get.

“I know. I know what you said, but I just -” Please. Please, _please._ “I think I’ve found a way for us to leave the Institute.”

“O- kay…?” Any enthusiasm would have been appreciated.

“Yeah. But it’s- it’s pretty drastic.”

“What, you got to gouge your eyes out, or something?”

When Jon doesn’t answer, Martin turns to look at him for the first time. “ _Fuck off._ Right. Uh - right, uh… like, I mean… permanently? Or…”

“I don’t know; I suppose? If your vision comes back, the Beholding probably does as well. Probably. But it’s not like it’s easy to only blind yourself temporarily anyways.”

Martin leans against his desk and crosses his arms. “Yeah, yeah, uh… Have you told the others, or…”

“No, you’re the first.”

“Why?”

Because they don’t like to remember he exists most of the time. Because they don’t deserve to be here but he’ll leave them behind to keep his child safe. Because if he’s not useful they’ll put him down as promised. Because he loves him and all he thinks about is him and what they’ve made.

“Because… because I trust you. I’m trying to think about what to do, and I… If I did try this, I don’t want to do it alone. But we could leave here. The three of us. You and me and the baby. Escape.”

Martin’s face - it hurts to see him look like that, devastated and furious. But a part of Jon, a bigger part than he wants to admit, relishes in it. _Good._ Let _him_ cry. Let it hurt. Let it hurt the way Jon has for months while his books go on about how _your partner_ can help, while he packs and re-packs his stupid canvas shopping bags, while he listens to the whispers outside his door that would take everything from him the second he makes the wrong move.

“Jon. Don’t do this.”

“Do what?”

“Make it my decision.”

As though Jon doesn’t want to go, like he has no reason to want it himself. “I’m not-”

“I mean…” Martin turns away again. Back to the recorder. “Could you even survive at this stage? Is there anything else keeping you alive?”

“It’s... I’ve been eating. At least 2750 calories a day until I got to the ideal weight according to my books, and 2300 to maintain what the baby needs. All balanced meals to get necessary nutrients. And supplemental vitamins. And meeting the daily recommended water intake. And sleeping, at least six hours, even if I have to lay there for ages to do it. And I’ve been exercising, walking laps in the deep archive every day. It wasn’t for _this,_ I just wanted to -”

“Jon.”

“I’ve been _trying, so hard,_ Martin, and this could -”

“Do you really think -" Martin’s voice gives out before he finishes. He wipes his eyes with his sleeve and tries again. “Do you think that pregnant people who commit what they’ll call a suicide attempt, especially people from the _Magnus Institute,_ get to walk away without any questions? Or do you think that maybe a few medical professionals will protest letting you go with a baby?”

Oh. 

“Just... Look, I need to see this thing through with Peter to the end. If what he’s saying is even half true, I need to be there.”

There has to be a way, something, somehow -

“But what if you don’t? After - after the baby’s born, if I go first? If we make it as though I was… I don’t know, had an accident with some - some cleaner or something because I was tired. And you can show me what to do by feel, and then once I’ve got it you can, too. Plenty of parents are blind, enough they make little 3D sonograms for them even. We’ll find a way to make it look like an accident for you, too. We could do it. There _has to be_ some way to do it. I mean, whatever their plan is for me, I’m damn sure that doing that isn’t it. It’d derail everything- we could derail everything, have the baby and then just... leave!”

He hadn’t thought it would work, not really, but he hadn’t expected Martin to laugh.

“Who are you kidding, Jon? You’re not going to do any of that.”

Jon hates him. The way he does the rest. Jon hates him, he hates him, he hates him.

“I could.” Jon is starting to choke on it, how much he hates him. His chest is too tight and his lungs are too small.

Martin scoffs, still laughing, still crying. “But you won’t. That’s why you came to me, isn’t it? You know I can’t do it, not now. You don’t want to blind yourself, you don’t want to die - what you want is a reason to not do those things, so. You come to me. Well, you’re welcome, because I can’t follow you on this one.”

Jon counts to ten. It’s not the time to be angry, not now, not at Martin.

“The Lonely’s really got you, hasn’t it?”

“You know, I think it always did.” Martin wipes his eyes again. He tugs at his sleeve the way he used to do.

“Maybe. Well, we’ll be here, if you…”

“I hope so.”

Jon twists his own sleeve in his fingers - this is Martin’s sleeve, too, he supposes, it’s Martin’s cardigan he’s wearing, has been wearing.

“Just don’t wait too long, okay? If you haven’t already.”

Jon shuts the door as softly as he can. He thinks of foxes tangled in razor wire, chewing through their own muscle in search of freedom. Vultures spitting freshly swallowed blood to lighten themselves, to fly faster out of danger. Snakes waving their tails to be attacked so they can strike at least once before they die.

Jon thinks of a conveniently placed bottle, or how much it would cost to stage a mugging, or digging them out himself with his fingers.

* * *

“But you’re not after a friend, are you, Jon?” Melanie shakes her head and sits on the sofa after a moment of feeling around.

“I need an ally.”

“Then I can’t help you.”

There’s no one else. It has to be them. “Then... then as a friend, I need… the baby.”

Georgie asks, “What about the - the baby?” She’s still staring as though his belly might bite. He'd hoped she wouldn't ever find out, after he'd managed to keep it hidden the last time they saw each other months ago. He’s still half-expecting a lecture about how irresponsible it is.

“I’m not asking you to -” He stops, takes a breath, tries to hold in the tears as much as he can, at least long enough to beg. “I’m… I need…”

“You need what?” Georgie leans against the sofa beside Melanie, crosses her arms, purses her lips the same way she used to when she was upset with him but trying to hold it back. It’s the same look she wore when he would skip a meal, or chew his nails to the quick, or buzz off his hair in the middle of the night.

“Just take the baby away, if something happens to me. If I bring them here, if… If you can, take them as far away as possible, anywhere but here, drop them at a hospital or something, as long as it’s not _here_. I have enough money that you don’t need to worry about paying to get somewhere. I need to know that if I can’t keep them safe then at least they’ll be completely out of the picture.”

Melanie sighs. “And you aren’t asking Basira…?”

“She’s read more than enough about Agnes. She doesn't think either of us are human. She’s offered to _put me down_ more than once, and if she does then I won’t be the only one.”

After a long moment, Melanie leans forward, shock written across her face. “What, you really think - I mean, she talked about the kid at that church, they saved him, she -”

“I don’t know!” Jon tugs his cardigan tighter around his belly, even though it can't quite reach. “I don’t know. You said yourself she only cares about assets and intel, not people, and if she doesn’t even think it’s a person… When it’s the Archives against everything else, we can work together, but I don’t know if we’re the next threat to be handled.”

“But she _wouldn’t,_ Jon, you _know_ that -”

“And I knew I wouldn’t do half the things I’ve done. If it’s in an effort to save the world? To keep them out of Elias’s hands? What’s one more monster?”

“And you really think something’s going to happen to you? Something that means we have to… to Moses your kid off to Brussels and say we found it in an alley? What makes you think whatever takes you out isn’t going to come for it?”

“I have to do _something!_ If Elias - you’re the only person he can’t see, unless I want to feed my baby to the Spiral. If you can make them disappear then this is just any other child. It won’t… It won’t be easy, I never recovered from losing my parents so young, and I can’t imagine it’ll be better as a newborn, but at least they’ll be alive, and have a fighting chance. Get the opportunity to grow up, not turn… not turn out like me.”

God, can’t they see how desperate he is? That he’d come here, with as much cash as he could withdraw from ATMs over the past two weeks since he first had the thought, now the others have relaxed their watch on him. Georgie knows he has no family, only child with just one uncle and his brood, who he’d seen on only a handful of times, no friends before, but especially not _now_.

Where else can he go? What else can he do, but hope they’d have pity for him?

“I’ve done all I can to keep them safe this long. I’ve followed every book to the letter, ate the right food, done the right exercises. But if I go out like you, they’ll be taken from me anyways. If whatever this feeling is comes true, I won’t be able to keep them safe any longer. I have - I have _nothing_ else, Melanie. Everything has been taken away. I just need to think that maybe they’ll get to grow up happy and have a good life, even if I can’t live to see it. I wouldn’t ask if… I- I trust you, and there’s no one else, Melanie. I promise you, I wouldn’t do this if I thought I had other options.”

Melanie sighs again. Tilts her head as though to look at her hands.

“Okay. I honestly hope that this is all a waste of time and I never hear about it again, but okay.”

Georgie doesn’t argue.

“Thank you. _Thank you._ I can’t -” Jon closes his eyes, just for a moment. Save the crying for later. Get back to the Institute first. “Thank you. I’m sorry I have to keep you tied up in this, but. Thank you.”

Georgie steps away from the sofa and puts a hand on Melanie’s shoulder.

“Come on, Melanie. Let’s get you back to bed.”

Jon steps back through the door. He hopes, with every piece of himself, he never has need to come here again. “Look after yourself. Both of you.”

Melanie nods. “You too. Good luck, I guess.”

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three

There's blood on his cardigan. Martin’s cardigan, even if Jon's the one wearing it. It’s the green one, sturdy but thin, so he doesn’t get too warm, two big pockets that don’t droop too badly when he uses them. One where he keeps a handful of toffees and his keys, the other, his phone and wallet. And now a blood splatter, all down the left side. It doesn’t matter. Jon has bigger things to focus on.

“Martin. He’s gone, Martin. He – he’s gone.”

“His only wish was to die alone.”

“Tough.” Jon’s glad he could take that, then. Taken any little joy Peter Lukas may have held and crushed it between his teeth. “Now – listen to me, Martin. Listen.”

Despite his current size and poor balance, Jon stands on his toes so he’s tall enough, reaches out to place his fingertips against Martin’s jaw, places his burnt hand on his chest, quickly, so Martin can’t move away.

“Hello, Jon,” he says. It’s like hearing his grandmother’s radio across the house, when he’d lay on the floor and listen to the faded chatter of the newscasters and pretend they had visitors. It was lonely, then, and he won’t go back to that. He won’t let Martin, either.

“Listen, I know you think you want to be here, I know you think it’s safer, and well – well, maybe it is. But I need you. _We_ need you.”

“No, you don’t. Not really. Everyone’s alone, but we all survive.” And Jon hates him, hates him, hates him, hates him, just to have something to keep above water here.

“I don’t just want to survive!”

“I’m sorry.” Good. Good. It’s something, anything, any feeling at all.

“Martin. Martin, look at me.” Jon brushes his thumb under Martin’s eye, turns his face. Martin looks at him. He’s lovely. Cheeks flushed under the tears dripping down them, auburn hair, starting to gray, tousled from the wind, pupils nearly obscuring the brown of his eyes. “Look at me and tell me what you see.”

Please. Please see anything. Please -

“I see…” The way his voice cracks makes Jon ache. Martin breathes in then out slowly. “I see you, Jon. I see you.” And he laughs, small, secret, like Jon hasn’t heard in a year, but still a laugh, and Jon could drown in it. Then it breaks, and Martin is weeping against Jon’s hand.

“Martin -” Jon pulls him down, wraps his arms around his neck, feels Martin’s move around him, memorizes every place they touch.

“I was on my own. I was all on my own.”

“Not anymore. Come on. Let’s go home.”

“How?”

Jon steps back, slides his hands down Martin’s arms, twists their fingers together. It’s the second time he’s held Martin’s hand.

“Don’t worry. I know the way.”

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four

Elias’s car is close enough to the ground that Jon has to rely on Martin to lower him into the passenger seat. It’s also roomy enough that he doesn’t feel like he’s going to scrape his belly against the dash every time he has to adjust, which is fortunate, considering the adjustments are many and frequent. He couldn’t possibly say what sort of car it is from his own sphere of knowledge, except that it’s certainly far too expensive for absolutely no reason. Melanie had seemed rather impressed with the logo on the keys when she swiped them from his office on her quest to steal a company card. Seeing as she and Jon were the only two in the Archives without a license, she had never taken it from its place behind the building.

Jon’s tempted to ask out of pure curiosity, but the Beholding is too busy telling him exactly how much his pelvis has widened in the past week (in centimeters, then millimeters, then micrometers, then light-nanoseconds, which he can only assume is intentionally antagonistic) versus the average before birth.

He’s half convinced he’ll be giving birth in the back seat like a gritty, low-budget coming of age film if Martin doesn’t speed up whatever’s keeping him in the bank. Martin called ahead on the drive over, as the bank had said to do on their website, and requested the largest withdrawal the teller was willing to authorize with minimal lying– _yes, I’m listed on the account, no, I’m not the primary account holder, yes, I have documentation on hand and I can email it now if that would help, I understand it’s short notice but that’s just the way in... antiques dealing, especially with pieces so rare and fragile, no, he’s not available as he works at sea for months at a time delivering those incredibly valuable antiques I mentioned, hence the secondary user for this account with full authorization_. He knows it's the end of the day, but they cleared it, and it’s _London_ , if anyplace in the country is going to run out of on-hand cash midweek it isn’t here. It’s all inside approved and waiting. If it wasn’t there they shouldn’t have agreed. There’s no reason for it to -

“Sorry, sorry, I know, that was ridiculous,” Martin says, climbing into the driver’s side. He opens his coat and starts passing over zippered bank bags. Jon doesn’t have any lap space to speak of so he tosses them on the rear floor board one by one. He promises himself that he’ll remember to hide them if they both have to be away from the car. “They were desperate to find something wrong but it’s all _technically_ allowed, and it’s not like Peter didn’t pull the same stunt when he got in a mood, and they can't actually make me _prove_ there's a wardrobe and vanity worth that much, plus I'm fully authorized on the account, it’s my name and my ID is valid so they had to let me have it but they weren’t going -”

“It’s fine." Jon shifts his hips as much as possible to ease the stress in his lower back. "We have it, let’s just get moving.”

“Let’s get moving,” Martin echoes with the same lack of enthusiasm.

* * *

“Can we stop at the next place we come to?” Jon’s rather proud that it’s taken this long into the trip to ask, though it’s likely due to dehydration more than his own willpower. He’d only noticed his thirst when Martin mentioned he may have something in his bag. Jon finished both bottles of water within five minutes.

Martin glances at him quickly before he seems to realize he should keep his focus forward. “Are you alright? Is something happening?”

“I have a human compressing my bladder, and this car is too nice to ruin, despite its owner.” Jon holds his hands on either side of his stomach as though he can lift some of the pressure off. “Shouldn’t have had as much to drink as I did. Might be nice to move around and stretch my back, too.”

Martin lets out an unsteady breath. “Okay. Okay.”

The place they stop isn’t anything fancy but they can use the restroom and fill the car up. They’re the only customers so Jon walks a few laps before Martin helps him back into his seat and makes his way inside again to buy a few provisions. The girl at the register’s father met the Flesh and the Stranger both in the past few years after a failed face lift, according to the Eye. 

It’s cold, but Jon is overheating in the car. He’s stripped down to a worn-thin tee shirt, after shedding his sweatshirt and cardigan. The air is a blinding relief where the shirt is riding up.

God, he hopes he doesn’t get much bigger. He’s below average height, and there’s only so much he can fit in his clothes. Martin’s clothes. Whichever. He rests one arm on top of his belly and runs the other hand along the strip of exposed skin. If he leans up, he can press his breasts against his arm to ease the ache. It feels like prodding at a bruise but the pressure is a nice enough change from the constant discomfort.

He hears familiar footsteps coming his way.

“It’s not much, but it’s something.” Jon sits up straight as Martin offers him a plastic bag full of the healthiest junk available. “Uh, Jon. You’ve got...” Martin makes a vague gesture towards his torso and very pointedly looks anywhere else.

“Oh, _Christ.”_ He'd been passively aware of _leaking_ being a possibility this early. Uncommon, but not unheard of. At this stage, the two little wet spots on his chest likely won’t spread much farther. If Martin hadn’t pointed it out he may not have even noticed - his weight leaning on his breasts has released only the slightest bit of fluid. He holds his hands up as if to pull the shirt away, but can’t quite bring himself to do so. He doesn’t understand why this, of all things, has shaken him so much. “Do you have anything I can... I need… Can you help? Please?”

Martin digs into his bag, then crouches to hold out a crumpled stack of napkins. He stops before touching him. Jon snatches them with shaking hands to press against his breasts. “Really? You’ve seen them. You’ve _touched_ them. I’m sure you remember; it _is_ what got us here.”

“Well, things have changed a bit since then,” Martin snaps. “Forgive me for thinking I should try to be respectful of your space.”

“I haven’t had space of my own for thirty-odd weeks and I won’t for the foreseeable future. If you can’t help me, I would appreciate if you could at least see if there’s a dry shirt somewhere you can reach.”

Jon knows Martin’s hesitation is reasonable. Having weepy unprotected sex exactly once, then not having any meaningful contact for something like a year, then reconnecting in a gray-scale hell dimension while declaring your undying love - it doesn’t replace the practice needed for touching each other with familiarity. He also knows he’s panicking over the barest hint of colostrum and would like some kind of support, even if he has no idea how to ask for it.

“This one’ll be tighter, I think. It may be snug enough to hold a few napkins in place so we can switch them out if we have to instead of needing a new one.” Martin holds out the shirt. He looks to the door and back to Jon, uncertain. "Do you want to go in and change, or should I just try to block you?"

The idea of pulling on his layers again and walking back in toward the bathroom past the cashier makes his teeth itch. It happens everywhere he goes, eyes drifting from the left side of his face where the worms had burrowed in, the right that had been sprayed with specks of melted plastic and pieces of shattered brick, down his throat to the long uneven line that had never healed clean despite being so shallow, to the twisted red-pink handprint that wraps around his own. If the weight on his shoulders isn’t heavy enough on its own, being peered at with curiosity, eyes on his face and his scars and his body and his baby, when eyes are the very thing he’s running from, when any eye could hold Elias behind it?

“Hold up your jacket, I’d rather not put myself on display if someone else comes by.”

Jon folds his napkins and spends more time than he would like situating them. He knows it’s overkill, and at this stage in his pregnancy more than a few drops is highly unlikely, but the idea of damp fabric sticking to his skin is unacceptable. The shirt really is tighter; it must not have been Martin's, or had shrunk at some point, god only knows with the state of the laundry in the Archives. Hopefully it can hold everything in place long enough for his chest to cooperate. Martin must not have noticed the few maternity shirts rolled up tight at the bottom of the bag.

Once he’s redressed, shirt barely stretched down below his navel, he settles into his seat. Martin avoids looking at him as he takes the old one to put away.

They’re no more than a minute back on the road when Jon comes to the conclusion that he’s irritated. He should have dealt with it calmly. Pregnant people do it all the time. He’s entirely capable of handling things that make him miserable, so there was no need to cause a scene. Then again, if he hadn’t been sore all day he wouldn’t have ended up accidentally expressing himself. Some book or other had mentioned that people with smaller breasts often reported more pain, and that’s his demographic. He’s just now filled out enough for two decent handfuls compared to what might have been generously called an A cup before. Maybe if he’d been proactive and followed through on a decent nursing bra Martin wouldn’t have had to witness that meltdown.

And _Martin._ Martin would barely look at him. Martin let go of his hand to pack his bags and, since then, not touched him any more than it took to help him in and out of the car.

More than once, Jon found himself horrified at the physical changes required to grow a baby - was that it? The distance was enough that Martin didn’t notice the difference before, and now he’s confronted with the reality of Jon’s body? He’d liked it well enough at one point. Jon’s been miserably hot and has no plans to cover the broad expanse of belly exposed by the shirt he’s been given, so if that’s the problem he’ll have to deal with it. And Jon can’t exactly control how he looks at the moment! It’s happening without his input! He just looks like this! In better circumstances, the sight of his stomach ballooning out over his scrawny legs would be comical. Now it’s just a savage reminder that the baby would need to _come out of him._ And it would be doing just that, very soon.

If Martin can’t even stand to see him now, will he be able to handle the birth? Or will Jon labor away alone, holding his own hand for comfort? That’s presuming Martin wants to be there at all. Maybe he’ll drop Jon off at whatever medical facility is closest, wait in the car until Jon has managed the first feeding and can stay covered up. Maybe he’ll drive Jon to the door of the safehouse and call himself a taxi for his getaway. Will he ever want to look at Jon again? Touch him, even in passing?

The frustration feels like the few bouts of furious heartburn he’s suffered through and it's rapidly spinning into panic.

Jon makes it through another hour before he breaks. 

“Do you want to do this?” He doesn’t mean to ask, not really. He’s tired. He’s sore. He's scared, just like every other day. He wishes it was Martin’s hands sliding across the skin of his belly, right under the place little shoulders sit.

“What?” Martin looks at him for barely a second before turning back to the road.

“Do you want to do this? If you don’t, we can figure something else out. There has to be more than one place to hide in this country. I can find another soon enough.”

Martin sighs. “There’s a lot happening right now, Jon, I need you to clarify what exactly _this_ is if you want an answer.”

“Any of it.” Jon waves his arms to indicate everything around them. He hates the way he sounds right now, with the fear so pronounced in his voice. “Do you want to be here, or do you want to go somewhere different -”

“The location doesn’t much matter -”

“That’s not - do you want to go to the same place I’m going?”

“I don’t know what you’re asking me, Jon.” Martin’s face is beginning to flush. He’s not quite shouting but he’s gotten louder over the course of the brief, nonsensical interrogation. “I’m literally driving a car to where you said we need to go.”

Jon is near frantic with the need for something concrete, enough so that he can feel himself welling up. “Do you want this, Martin? At some point in the next six weeks, I’ll go into labor. After that, I’ll be wherever I can find that’s safe enough to keep a newborn. I need to know, before it’s too late. If you want to back out I need you to tell me so we can figure out another plan now.”

“What do you mean _back out?”_ Martin sounds more hurt than angry. “What other plans do you think we could make?”

“Just - just pull over. I need to get out.” For a long moment Jon wants to go back to the washed-out beaches they’ve just escaped.

“It’s dark, we aren’t -”

“Please, Martin, I need to get out. I need to get out of the car.”

Apparently the tears are convincing enough for Martin to pull onto the shoulder and park. As soon as they’re stopped, Jon throws open the door and uses it to drag himself out. He pulls the sweatshirt back on, now that the temperature is low enough to sting. The texture of it against his arms makes him want to scream. The air is so full of something he can’t name that he could choke. The best he can do at the moment is to lean against the bumper and let himself cry.

“Jon, what’s going on?” Martin stops three feet away. “Is something wrong? It’s - obviously, I know, something - _shit._ Jon, I need you to tell me if this is an emergency situation, okay? I need to know if we need help right now.”

Jon shakes his head and tries to take deep breaths, the way his first (and last) therapist had taught him when he was five years old and still remembered his mother's face. He can’t recall if it’s in through his nose or out or how long each breath should take. Martin hovers just far enough away that Jon can’t reach. The Beholding tells him that the factory worker who applied the nozzle to the can of spray paint that was used to tag a bridge somewhere nearby died after a fall down the stairs a year ago, and that the baby is 5.08 pounds and 18.11 inches. None of those things are helpful in regulating his breathing.

Even so, he's nearly embarrassed at how quickly he's done. A few short minutes and the desperate sobbing is over. Sprint, not marathon. He's left wiping his face with his sleeves despite the continuing tears he can't quite smother.

“I’m fine.” He thinks it would be more convincing if he didn’t sound so devastated. “Just felt closed in. Needed air.”

“Please don’t do that.”

“I’m not-”

“Jon.” Martin steps closer to lean against the car beside him. “I can’t handle talking around things right now. I need you to tell the truth, otherwise I don’t know how to help.”

The car is still running. They should be on the way to safety. Instead, Jon is luxuriating in his breakdown on the side of the road, and he knows they won’t be moving until he gets the worst of his thoughts out.

“You didn’t get a say in any of this. I convinced you to sleep with me, and I left you to deal with the fallout of my stupid plans, and then you had to work around me doing my best to be disruptive while you were trying to keep things under control, and now I’ve dragged you out here to the middle of nowhere, and that’s only halfway to the other middle of nowhere we’re suppose to be going -”

Martin huffs, cutting him off. "You didn’t… do any of that to me, at least not on purpose, or - or maliciously. It’s just shit luck all lined up in a row.” Martin looks at Jon from the corner of his eye, as though he’s afraid to face him fully. “Well. The first part wasn’t so bad. I was... willing and enthusiastic.”

“I think… It’s - I’m trying to ask…” Jon sighs. Nothing for it but to push forward. “I never asked if you wanted any of it. I just kept hoping you would want to be involved. And now it’s actually happening… I need to know if _I’m_ having a baby or _we’re_ having a baby. You didn’t get to choose this. If it’s not something you want then you deserve an out. I’d rather know before… Before I start planning."

He hadn't considered it before, a happy ending, for this exact reason. It was unbearable. The idea of Martin whispering encouragements through contractions, folding little clothes, navigating a first bath in a kitchen sink, first words, first steps, scraped knees, birthday candles. A tomorrow so distant as to be a mirage.

"Do you want me to be here?"

"That doesn't matter. I'm the one who got us here. I can handle what comes after."

Martin rolls his eyes and turns bodily to look at Jon. He's angry again, it seems, louder than before. Jon forgets sometimes how tall Martin can be when he isn't trying to hide himself. "What does that even mean, got us here? Did you do it on purpose? Was a supposedly unplanned pregnancy actually part of your dastardly plot? Did the mystical powers above say no, don’t mind pulling out, we can get somewhere with this? Did you know this was going to happen when we had sex?"

Jon doesn't want to think about it. He still isn't sure if he should have left, let Martin know the second he did, risked the both of them being distracted or failing entirely. He doesn't want to admit it and have Martin hate him for keeping it to himself.

"It didn't tell me until we stopped for the night on the way to the museum. Interrupted me mid-statement." He laughs without any humor. "Tim was furious. I locked myself in the bathroom and cried for hours. He could tell I was Beholding something. He thought it was about the Unknowing. Couldn't exactly tell him I was being spoon-fed facts about conception, including all applicable fertility issues. When I woke up and nothing had changed, I thought it was all a bluff, there was no way it could survive my mess of a body."

Wonderful. Now Martin's crying, too. All in all, a successful conversation.

"You're welcome to be angry about that later, but right now I need to know what's coming. The baby is guaranteed, it's the number of parents that I have to worry about."

The car judders, startling them both. After a miserably long moment, Martin slumps and looks away. "We're not talking about this on the side of the road."

It’s answer enough.

Jon hadn't known, before, how many times a heart could break, and in how many different ways. It makes sense, though. Better to end a relationship that hasn’t started somewhere with less risk of oncoming cars. He stomps back to his seat and tries to determine the best way to get in.

“Hang on,” Martin says, walking up behind to offer his arm.

Jon clenches his teeth to keep the harshest of his words from spilling out. “Stop. I have to figure out how to do it myself if you aren’t going to be around to help.”

Martin steps back and scoffs, tears rolling down his face and heavy in his voice.

“Fine. _Fine._ You don’t have to rub it in, Jon. I get it, I know you don’t want me here. I understand. I’ve done absolutely nothing to deserve a place in your lives past - past financial support coming in the mail. But I have to at least get you somewhere you’ll be safe. Once we’re there, I can fuck off and you won’t have to think about me ever again if you don’t want to. Right now, I’m making you my responsibility. You can do whatever you want when I’m gone but until then _let me help.”_

Jon is almost certain he’s going to be sick. His skin feels like it’s vibrating, the way it had when his hand was infected, or when he was waiting to die in the woods, with Nikola, with Crew, heaving on the floor of the Archive bathroom, sobbing in a low end B&B.

“Oh, I don’t want you? _I_ don’t want _you?"_ He knows how he sounds, half-crazed and furious, but he can't stop. Why bother? If Martin is already leaving, a hysterical screaming match can't do any harm, and he might as well get a few hits in to keep it hurting so much. "After chasing even the barest scraps of your attention for months. Trying to get my hands on any tape you recorded after they were _confiscated_ so we’d hear your voice. Wearing your clothes to smell your aftershave because I thought it was the closest I'd ever get to you again -”

"You are _not_ the only one who was miserable-"

"But I was the only one who wanted change that, or have you forgotten - do I need to remind you of the _begging-"_

"Stop!" Martin shouts. "Enough of the… the shit you have cooked up to avoid saying something. Tell me what you mean, for once! In plain language, no dancing around. You keep going back and forth and I don't know what you're trying to say. I can’t handle that right now. I am tired, Jon. I am so, _so tired_ of guessing what you want from me. I did that for years and it's never done any good."

"It doesn't-"

Martin buries his face in his hands and lets out a loud, frenzied laugh. When he looks up Jon sees the exhaustion lining his face and hates himself for not noticing before now. "It does! All that matters to me right now is you. If you tell me, I will make it happen, whatever it takes. If you tell me to leave, I will, no matter how much I don't want to. I understand, I deserve that, you don’t get to step in at the last minute and be a dad like you’ve worked for it. If you tell me - if you let me, I will be grateful for every day I'm allowed to be with you, in whatever capacity you choose, even if it’s just as Martin that Dad knows, who... pops in for birthdays and Christmas and gets to call once a month.

“But don’t say that it’s because I don’t want you. No matter what I had to do, I never, _never_ stopped wanting you, either of you, not from the _second_ you told me. I thought I was going to die for this. I fell asleep every night with that sonogram in my hand, and pretended I was fine with being so far away, because I wasn’t willing to let this be taken by force. I have loved you for so, so, _so long,_ Jon, and that isn’t something that’s ever going to change. So I’m willing to do what you ask of me, whatever that may be. I won’t make this harder on you if I can help it. I just need you to tell me if you want me here or not.”

Jon doesn't think he'd be capable of speech even if he knew what to say. There’s too much to cover at once. 

So, instead, he reaches out and lets himself be pulled into Martin's arms, as close as they can be with the baby between them, and has his third breakdown of the night. 

* * *

It's… nice. Shockingly so. Small, and appears to be a bit dated, but considerably higher end than 'safehouse' would imply. 

"Well. Not exactly what I expected," Martin says. They haven't moved from the car, instead looking over the artfully weathered logs and cheery red door caught in the headlights, waiting for the other shoe to drop. "How do you think she ended up with this place?"

"It was built by a wealthy couple from Edinburgh in the early 2000s who purchased the land from an aging farmer with no heirs. It was meant as a quaint summer home, but it was a bit less rustic than intended, as they were unwilling to part with too many creature comforts - high end of mid-range appliances, spacious bath and a bedroom with a view, generator to make sure they would never go without for longer than it took to start up. They divorced three months after their first stay. Largely unrelated, although it didn't help. They didn't realize how little they'd like being stuck together with only four finished rooms, and each refused to be the one to go home first. Neither would part with it out of spite until Daisy stumbled across it - entirely by accident - and seized the opportunity. She scrounged up the details with help from a few questionable contacts, made an offer along with a number pointed comments to each regarding their less-than-legal business endeavors and practically stole the place, just the way they'd left it years before. The amenities were less important than a gratuitous intended home-bar-and-wine-cellar that never made it past the well-insulated basement phase, and the - oh, good. Good, good. Wonderful. We're still doing this then."

"Ah." Martin, who had frozen during the flood of information, nods and taps his fingers on the steering wheel. "Maybe once you're inside and off to bed it'll give you a break?"

Jon sighs. "One way to find out, I suppose."

Martin takes the lead and lets Jon drift along beside him, hands pressed to his back like a ham-fisted caricature of the third trimester. He digs the key out of the deep mulch at the corner as instructed then waves Jon inside and sets him on the sofa while he brings in the bags. It’s cold. The heat doesn’t work if the Eye is to be believed. It also says the last owners had a fight about the salmon he’d prepared because she doesn’t like it, and he says she’s always eaten it that way, and he doesn’t realize he’s used the pricey hempseed oil instead of olive because they're both in useless unlabeled decorative bottles, and she hates the taste, and they’re both angry about something else entirely, and that the smoke point of hempseed oil is 166°.

"Hey." Jon opens his eyes to see Martin crouching in front of him. God, had he fallen asleep? "Let's get you changed and into bed, alright?"

He fades in and out of focus for the next half hour or so.

There's already a fire in the gaudy fireplace in the bedroom and the sheets appear to be fresh. He changes sitting at the end of the bed and when his make-shift nursing pads fall to the floor he kicks them under the nightstand because he won’t be able to pick them up and he doesn’t want to think about them anymore. Martin takes the bathroom, running the faucet to see if the pipes are functional. Once they run clear, Jon trades with him to scrub at his eyes where they're still sore and puffy, brush his teeth, avoid looking in the flashy mirror.

The haze lasts until he’s in bed, at which point he’s wide awake with someone twisting and turning and smashing against his bladder again, even though he’s just gone. Martin had climbed in beside him instead of running off to the other bedroom.

Makes sense. Practical. This room has the fireplace.

Jon can’t tell if he’s nervous to have Martin so close. Martin’s the last person he shared a bed with, but that had been so long ago and so different. Hard to be nervous about bed-sharing manners when someone’s just been inside you and you’re going to die in two days. Still, he isn’t sure how to navigate. Sleeping on his back just isn’t an option anymore. He’ll have to change positions eventually. He can manage about three more minutes before the pins and needles become a real problem. Should he face the wall? It’s nice enough, a dark blue-grey with a bland landscape, but it won’t keep him occupied if the sleeplessness lasts. He wants to look at Martin. Remember the details he’d taken for granted. Record every point of interest.

Well. He’s already made a fool of himself a dozen times tonight. What’s one more? He wants to look at Martin, so he does.

It’s still not comfortable. He’s made so much noise and probably bothered Martin and it’s _still_ not comfortable. He needs another pillow. Something to support all that weight without twisting his spine. He can sleep with one under his head, the second is really just over kill. He shoves down the quilt, folds and turns the pillow until it’s wedged in and keeps him rolling too far. It’s... better. Should have bought one of those specialty pillows.

Oh, good, and they're kicking again, of course, they’ll keep quiet most of the car ride and get in a bit of exercise the moment he tries to rest.

“God, can I have a few minutes, _please?”_ he hisses without meaning to. It would have been nice to get a baby that does slightly less moving, especially when there’s no room left to move, he thinks, then feels horrible because he doesn’t want a different baby, this one is _perfect,_ so they can move as much as they want.

“Are you…” Martin’s rolled over now, too, to squint at him with bleary eyes. “Do you… need me to go out to -”

“ _No!_ No. Just can’t get comfortable with all this weight and the moving around.”

Martin goes from drowsy to focused immediately. His fingers clench where they rest on the bed. “Oh. Do you need me to get you another pillow? I’m sure there are some in the other room.”

“It’s fine.” Martin’s already awake, so might as well take the time to rearrange. Jon squirms again until he finds a position that finally eases the worst of the pressure on his back. Nothing to be done for the inconsiderate roommate testing his organs’ durability. “Once we’re done with our calisthenics it’ll be alright.”

“Okay.” Martin is still tense. He doesn’t look away from where Jon’s propped himself up, as though searching for visible signs - oh. He hasn’t... Here’s Jon, thinking how frustrated he is about the jabs to his kidneys and Martin’s never -

“Do you…” Jon lifts his shirt and reaches out for Martin’s hand, takes a moment to hold it in his. “Do you want to…?”

He’s too nervous to say it out loud, but Martin understands and nods, already crying at just the offer. When Jon is certain it’s the right spot, he places Martin’s hand over the little flutter. God, it’s as if they know the gravity of this moment - one kick turns to two, then three, and a long press against his palm, flurries of movement without rest. _Hello, hello, hello, I’ve waited for you._

“Oh, Martin…” Jon reaches out to touch his cheek, soothe away the tears if he can’t calm the gasping breaths and rising wails now the weeping has begun in earnest. Jon has no energy left to cry, not after how much he's already done today, but he can hold Martin for his turn. “Come here.” He pulls Martin forward until he can wrap an arm around him without shaking Martin’s hand from its place. Jon begged for this, from every deity he could think of, though maybe with fewer tears. Martin’s head resting against his neck, Martin’s legs brushing against his own, Martin’s hand pressed to his belly, curling around their baby, Martin Martin Martin Martin.

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five

The first good cry knocks something loose, and Martin spends the next three days swinging between unresponsive - when Jon is too quiet or too far away - and bursting into tears anytime anything at all happens - when he wakes up and sees Jon, when the food in the cupboard is still good, when he notices he packed his favorite socks, when the new bar of soap under the sink smells like orange, when there are no less than a dozen plush throw blankets in the closet, when Jon takes his hand and presses it to his belly.

On the fourth day, he wakes up at six thirty, tells a disgruntled Jon to go back to sleep, and has everything in the front half of the house dusted, swept, mopped, and sanitized by the time Jon rolls out of bed at eleven, at which point he’s pulled out all the kitchenware to scrub.

Jon isn’t sure if it’s _good_ or he’s just deflecting. But at least he’s not about to cry because he heard Jon tell the baby which flavor of protein bar they were having. Progress? Maybe? His offers to help are soundly refused, so he decides not to object. At least not until Martin cleans the bathrooms, at which point he complains loudly from his spot on the sofa about the unbelievable injustice of being denied entry because of the cleaning products.

Martin ignores the griping and brings him a freshly dried basket of towels and sets him to folding, if he’s so eager to be useful.

Late in the afternoon, when he’s run out of surfaces to scrub and laundry to sort, he opens the cabinets and actually takes note of the contents. The few times they’d eaten any of it, they read the date to make sure it wouldn’t kill them and made the best of it. This method is less than sustainable now they’re aware of how little of Daisy’s stash they have and Martin has a small panic at the sight of near-empty cupboards.

So after days of living off just-short-of-expiry tuna, crackers from their service station stop, and Jon’s hearty emergency supply of protein bars, they realize they need food.

They sit together at the kitchen table and make a list. Fresh fruits, vegetables that won't go bad too quickly and are easy to eat raw. Prepackaged meals that won't upheave Jon’s plan. More vitamins. Things that are easy to cook, because both of them are exhausted now and likely to remain that way. Granola bars and oatmeal for difficult mornings. Individually wrapped toffees, so Jon has to open each one and will hopefully notice how many he’s eaten instead of powering through the whole bag, even though he tried that last time and it didn’t help.

Then the baby decides to make a ruckus, and Jon drags Martin’s hand to every little motion. After a few minutes chasing movement, Jon has a practice contraction, and they realize the event the contraction’s practicing for is birth, after which point they’ll be in possession of an actual baby, and they have nothing required for an actual baby.

So they stay at the kitchen table and make a second list. Socks and swaddles and bodysuits and bibs. Considering the weather, a hat, a scarf, a good coat. Enough Pampers to test the physical limits of the car. A car seat, for that matter. The metal co-sleeper Jon had been stuck on, because he won’t have his baby too far away after having them settled under his heart for so long, but he won't take any extra risks, so they need something structured and strong enough that he won't panic about rolling over on top of them. Jon fetches his little moleskine and adds three dozen more things, then reconsiders and crosses two dozen of those off, then reconsiders again and adds a few back. Martin takes the list and redoes it in his tidy, blocky handwriting, with just the bits that are uncrossed because it's an absolute mess.

Then Jon mentions keeping a bag ready for when he goes into labor, and they realize they need a doctor, and agree that maybe letting Jon cheat a little with the Beholding is fair, considering they have a good amount of extenuating circumstances surrounding their baby.

So they sit at the kitchen table even longer and make a third list. A midwife that will see them without hassle over Jon’s transition, traffic in stores in a few cities close by so they can avoid crowds that may not be understanding, how to get a box at the post office without giving too much information. Peter’s credit card number. How to use a carseat, because Jon's seen the rates of improper installation, and if he can't use his horrible powers to avoid being a statistic then what's the point?

Once it’s all sorted, Jon settles in for a statement and a protein bar. Martin takes the car to the village so he can use the phone to call the midwife they’d Beheld, and ply her with whatever cover he’s come up with for their situation.

The second Martin comes back, Jon ushers him off to bed, even though it’s still early evening and they won’t be able to sleep just yet. The baby will protest his stillness by way of internal assault, and Martin will get distracted as they talk and rub his hand in long broad strokes over Jon’s belly, and Jon will absolutely not bring any attention to it lest it stop, and they can calm down from the stress of lists lists lists.

It’s just so much to do, and and in so little time, and with such high stakes.

How does a baby need so many _things?_ And how is he going to explain the inconsistencies in his care? And where does he even _begin_ on a birth plan? Why didn’t he bother looking into it before now? What does he do with it when he has one? Just keep it in his pocket so when it happens he can hand it off? What needs to be on it? Is it just a list of demands, like a ransom note? He knows some things he'd prefer when the time comes. Martin is the only person allowed to touch him unless medically required, he doesn’t want any spectators that aren’t absolutely essential, if his baby isn’t handed to him the second they’re out he’ll scream until it happens and start biting if it's not fast enough. Is that his birth plan, then? Seems sparse. It probably needs more than that. More professional language, at least.

It’s just so much to think about.

“This is hard.”

“Relaxing?” Martin’s fingers drag slowly down the side, under Jon’s stomach, tracing the same path back up. 

“Trying to get ready for a baby.”

Martin stops, drops his hand flat over a flutter, starts up again once the motion disappears. “I think that’s why people try to plan for kids before they get this far.”

“Smart of them.” Jon sighs, only a little dramatically. “I suppose I’ve learned my lesson about responsible birth control practice when sleeping with my coworkers.”

Martin huffs. “Planning on making that a habit, then, sleeping with coworkers?”

Well. Jon had wanted to bring it up anyways. His reading makes it sound like he’s hardly the first person to spend their whole pregnancy vaguely hoping to get off during every waking hour, though he is one of very few. It would be nice to do so, especially with a helping hand. Martin had liked his body before. Maybe he still does? Hopefully. Worst that can happen is Jon goes back to doing it himself. Might as well shoot his shot.

“Just the one coworker, preferably. Although, with our employer indisposed, he may be acting as my boss. He was his assistant, you know, keeping the place running.”

"Are you…" Martin scrunches his nose, the way he does when he thinks he may be missing something. Jon hopes the baby does that too, someday. "Is that a proposition?"

Yes. "Depends on the answer?"

“I mean. The answer isn’t _no,_ but I think I’m done for the day, so let’s call it a not-now. And even if I was up for it right this second, I feel like we should at least have a conversation about it before we do.”

Jon heaves another woe-is-me sigh and Martin rolls his eyes at the theatrics.

“Oh, don’t be a brat. Just a bit, at least, then we can see where tomorrow takes us. Boundaries? Anything that’s a big no? Safety concerns?”

Why does it need talking about? What more needs saying? Last time he just climbed on and it happened. Last time also got them in a heap of trouble. But he loves that trouble with his whole being, so it worked out.

“Can’t we just see what happens?”

"Last time we had sex without talking you got pregnant and exploded within two days. Call it overreacting, but I’d rather have a chat beforehand this time round."

Just because it’s true doesn’t mean he has to say it. Fine, Jon had read that chapter, hoping beyond hope - might as well put it to use. Whatever. Communication.

“As long as there’s no pressure on my stomach it’s fine. Uh. I can’t be completely on my back too long, all the weight compresses the blood vessels, so we’ll either have to avoid it or be very quick. Or, well, it should be alright if I’ve got myself wedged up on pillows. If…" Oh, they've done it before, why is it so difficult to say? "You'll have to be a bit gentle with, um. Actual… er, penetration.”

"So, is that something you want to avoid? Like, will you get hurt?"

"Unless it's vetoed by a doctor, it's safe until my water breaks, I think."

"And we haven't seen a doctor yet."

Oh, fuck off. He should have kept his mouth shut, if this is what _talking about it_ gets them.

"Maybe we can get you set up in your pillow pile and I can eat you out? Something to hold you till Wednesday."

Nevermind.

"That's. Okay, just." He wouldn't know, not really, it's not like Jon had given him the opportunity to get a good look last time. Did have his hand in the region, though. Doesn't mean he'll notice. But if they're _discussing,_ it's only reasonable to bring it up. "There's some… changes."

Martin frowns. "Cause for concern changes?"

"No, just… the sort a body goes through in this situation? It's. Hm."

"Jon. Just tell me, I'm not about to run off screaming."

"It's… there's swelling. And things are…" Having a body is hard. Jon hates this. "I hate this. Okay, things are… wetter? And I haven't put much effort into, uh, maintenance. Or any effort. It’s just a lot of bulk to work around here and, well, no need to impress anyone when I'm - uh, I'm handling it myself. Not that I’ve really had any time to handle it, lately, it’s been weeks and I’ve been going - that’s - you don’t need - _Christ…_ Um. It’s just. And it's all… very - very sensitive? A lot more than before. Seems like it doesn’t take all that much nowadays. The, uh, blood vessels are putting in a lot of work in that area. So. Things are. Things are a bit tender. And swollen. I already said that. Just. Changes from all of this." Jon gestures broadly downward.

"Okay. Are you telling me because you just want me to know, or is it because you're scared I'll think it's gross?"

And of course, here's Martin finding the root of it immediately. 

"Both?"

Martin shrugs. “So your body is a little different because you’re trying to single-handedly grow a human person in it. You’re allowed to be self conscious, lord knows I am, but don’t be on my behalf. I liked it then, I like it now. I’m thirty years old, Jon, I promise that I won’t be put off because you’re an adult with hair and you get worked up easy.”

“It’s not - just seemed like you should be… aware.”

“Okay. I... Okay.” Martin huffs and pauses as though to gather his thoughts.

Jon tugs Martin’s arm so he resumes his earlier petting, drifting his fingers in aimless loops.

“Okay. You don’t- don’t need to worry. I don’t… have a lot to compare it to?”

“Like… sex?” It’s been a while but Jon remembers it well enough - if that’s his work as an ameteur, Jon is eager to see what he can work up to.

“No, no, that’s. I’ve had my fair share. But.”

Ah.

“You can say you don’t know what to do with a vagina, Martin.”

“ _Okay.”_ He sounds terribly indignant for someone flopping to his back to hide his face in his hands. So much for the petting. “I have had exactly one experience with a vagina, and you were there.”

“Really?” Jon laughs. He can’t help it. “That was your first attempt? I was _joking-”_

“I mean, I have a four-person sample size, it hadn’t ever come up-”

“Did you really manage to get someone pregnant your first time with the proper equipment?”

_“I know!”_

Jon pulls at his wrist until he drops his arms. “Wait. Then what were you planning to do once you got down there, poke around and hope for the best?”

Martin groans and somehow sinks lower into the mattress.

“Fine. Only seems fair, if we’re doing this sharing thing. I was planning to take this to my grave. No one was ever supposed to know.”

Jon is _delighted._ “What did you do?”

“Okay. It’s - you leave, and I’m trying to be optimistic. So I think, the _second_ Jon gets back, I’m asking him on a date, and taking him somewhere that isn’t the Institute or places we go all the time, and it's going to be _nice_ , but not too nice because neither of us would be comfortable with - with _chandeliers._ And then, if things go well, I’m going to take him back to mine and do my best to absolutely destroy this man.”

“Oh, we were very confident, hm?”

“I was _hopeful,_ I wanted to show you a good time. I had to figure out how to do that, and be respectful about everything. I mean, not only do I need to navigate physical differences, we’re approaching sex from totally different angles mentally, too. I kept thinking about how you explained it ages ago, but we’d had a few drinks and you never said if _sex_ was something _you_ liked or not, just the attraction thing, so I didn’t know if you were interested in it at all until you just… well, _did it._ And I didn’t know if it was a one-time event. So I wanted to be… educated, to make sure I wasn’t pushing boundaries or missing cues, just so I could make sure you were setting the pace. If there was any pace to set. And if you _were_ interested in a repeat performance, get a bit of direction in general because I’m still in uncharted territory.” 

“Martin.” It connects, what he’s getting at. Jon leans up on an elbow to see his expression - it’s as flustered as he imagined. “ _Martin._ Martin, you did _sex research?”_

He throws his arms over his face again. “Oh my _god,_ this was supposed to never have happened, I installed a whole separate browser, I used a private window, I cleared my history, I _removed the program,_ I was going to show up and act like I knew what I was doing.”

“What - ” Jon tastes static in his throat, so he takes a deep breath. He has to continue this line of questioning, it’s too amusing _not_ to, but only if the answers are fairly given. “If you could tell me, Martin, what exactly this research entailed.”

“I don’t… I read about ten million different things, I don’t know.”

“Martin, did you… Martin, were there videos? How aggressively were you preparing for this sex?”

“I’m going to die. You’ve killed me.”

"Not yet, not until we see if your research is good -"

“Oh my _god,”_ Martin groans. He rolls over again to face Jon. “I wasn’t sitting at my desk watching porn and taking notes, I just wanted to make it good for you. Everything I knew was from the joke of an anatomy class I had in school before I quit and what I overheard other kids talking about. Which I guess worked out okay the first time, but I wasn’t going to jump in and try to impress you with whatever Jeremy from the year above me bragged about in the hall. So. I had to… prepare. I was trying to talk myself out of calling you because you had enough going on, and it had only been like four hours since you left, and I was nervous before the whole thing with Elias, so I tried to… I don’t know, cheer myself up, have a little pep talk. I’m going to take Jon on a date and have a really nice time and then, if he’s interested, try to give him the most profound sexual experience of his life. If I can look up menus for our nice dinner, I can look up some... tips and tricks, for after.”

It’s… sweet. Thoughtful in a way Jon wouldn’t have considered. The same time he was thinking about Martin, Martin was thinking about him, though he ended up locked in a bathroom waiting to ovulate while he assumes Martin was trying to erase all evidence of his studying.

“Sorry if that’s too weird.” Martin’s gone from half embarrassed to fully ashamed, judging by his face. “I was just really hoping, you know. I wanted to do something nice, let you relax, give you something good to think about instead of whatever was coming next.”

Jon shuffles forward, struggling through his pile of pillows, until he can pull Martin in for a kiss. “Thank you. For thinking of me. Even if thinking of me meant using Institute computers to watch -”

_“Jonathan.”_

He tries to kiss Martin again, but he's smiling too wide to manage.

* * *

The best part about the relief of briefly escaping existential terror mixed with months of exhaustion catching up mixed with the cocktail of hormones in his body? It doesn’t take much to set him off into tears.

So while Martin is spilling their carefully-crafted backstory to the midwife - an ex-boyfriend showing up at appointments, making threats, the police refusing to help, running off in the night after finding things moved around in their flat - Jon completes the look by sitting on the table and crying quietly. In reality he’s thinking about how little babies’ feet are because they’d bought socks with tiny pink pawprints on the bottom earlier and they were _just so small, Martin._

Around the time Martin wraps up his tale with an apology (“oh, I’m so sorry, you don’t need the whole mess, you probably didn’t want to hear all that, it’s just been so much and we’ve had no one to listen, I’m sorry for putting this on you, you're not a therapist, you shouldn't have to deal with our problems”), Jon realizes they’ll probably be able to get another ultrasound with how well this con is going and starts up the tears again, and he knows the midwife thinks it’s because of how hard it’s all been on him just from how loud she’s thinking. Then he realizes he might see his baby’s feet and how small they are in that photo and has to stop himself wailing at the thought, because there is such a thing as overkill.

He’s not alone once they hear the heartbeat - Martin holds Jon’s hand, presses it to his lips to muffle his sobs.

They get multiples of this one, too, and tuck them into the stack of pamphlets and papers with Jon’s instructions about writing a birth plan.

And when Martin offers to bring the car to the door, Jon agrees so he can ask the midwife one last question.

* * *

Jon is waved away when he tries to help bring in their shopping, so while Martin carries in the bags and bags and boxes and bags of supplies, he takes the time to shower and braid the front half of his hair to keep it out of his face- it’s just now where he likes it, barely below his chin, after being shaved during his coma, making it too short to pull back but long enough to be in the way. 

When he’s finished and hears the sound of movement in the front of the house, he slips into a thermal that’s baggy even on Martin, one that can keep him covered with a little arranging when he decides to forgo anything underneath, and makes his way back out.

“Martin?”

“Hmm?” He doesn’t turn away from his sorting - he’s started popping open packages and tossing little clothes into the basket to wash.

“We saw the doctor today.”

“We did.”

“I was told a few days ago that I would need to wait for certain activities until a doctor approved them, and I’ve been approved.”

Martin looks up, puzzled. “What are you - oh. Oh!” He drops the nursing bra he’d been pulling tags off when he notices Jon’s choice of apparel. “We didn’t get around to the sex, did we?”

“And I seem to recall someone mentioning their extensive research on the topic.”

“Oh, do you. Do you recall that. Is that something you remember.”

Jon grins, wide and unapologetic, at Martin’s tone. “Well, if you’re interested in a practical demonstration, I’ll be in bed. Feel free to join.”

He wanders back into the bedroom and arranges his pillows. By the time he’s settled in, Martin has followed and stripped to his boxers and tee shirt. Jon would have liked to do it himself, but he isn't upset about the expediency. He stretches so the hem of his own shirt rides up and shivers at Martin's pleased hum.

He holds out an arm to Martin. “You’re rather far away.”

Martin climbs into the bed and presses against Jon, lifting himself up on an elbow to lean over him. “Is this better?”

It is, so Jon rolls over to his side and kisses him.

This isn’t their second first kiss. That had been the morning after they arrived, and sent Martin into horrible sobs of relief at surviving to do so, and Jon into a spiral of panic that he might have managed to entirely misread everything about the night before. It is, however, the first chance they’ve had to savor it, take their time, learn each other.

Martin kisses him softly, gently, pulling back each time Jon tries to push forward. After a minute of this Jon huffs impatiently, and he feels Martin smile. He wouldn’t mind wasting an hour like this sometime, but he's got other things he’d like to get to.

It works - he angles his head, parts his lips, presses Jon back into his pillows, kisses him with intent. A hand slides across Jon’s belly to rest at his waist, pulling him as close as he can be with the obstacle. Martin kisses his way over Jon’s cheekbone, across his jaw, down his neck to drag his teeth over his pulse. Jon threads his fingers into Martin’s hair, holding him in place as he tries to leave marks against his collar, and arches his back as though he can move any nearer. Martin’s hand drifts down to Jon’s hip and under his shirt. Jon whines at the contact, then pushes Martin back.

“Okay?” Martin asks.

“Let me take this off?”

Martin helps him sit up in his little nest of pillows then moves to kneel in front of him. His hands slip under the hem, pulling it slowly up over the large swell of his belly, fingers skating against the taut skin. He urges Jon to raise his arms, lifts the shirt above his head, lets the fabric catch his breasts. When it’s been tossed to the side, he rests his hands on either side of Jon’s stomach again.

“What do you want, Jon?”

He reaches out to pull Martin in for another kiss. “Well, if you put in all that work, why not show off what you’ve learned?”

Martin huffs a laugh and pushes him gently onto his back. “Oh, fuck off, I wish you were as funny as you think.”

Jon smiles, smug and self-satisfied, until Martin falls beside him again and presses his lips to Jon’s breast.

He’s always been sensitive, but since he’s been pregnant, it’s so much more. His chest has grown heavy and full, aching, his nipples large and dark, turning tight and pebbled without much provocation. Martin’s hand reaches up to cup one breast as he kisses along the crest of the other - now it’s more than enough to fill his palm, and Jon arches into the touch.

Martin kneads Jon’s chest gently, thumb rolling over a nipple. His tongue brushes the other before his mouth seals around it. Jon whines, fingers returning to Martin’s hair to hold him in place. He feels each pull between his legs, already tense around the emptiness and cock already stiff. Jon’s hips begin to shift, only so far under his weight. After a gentle graze of teeth Jon moans outright and Martin pulls off. His far hand trails away to the underside of Jon’s belly, making slow passes lower and lower, never reaching where Jon wants.

“Do you need something?” Martin looks up through his lashes to meet Jon’s eyes. It’s his turn to sound smug as his warm breath flows over the wet peak of Jon’s nipple. He kisses just below it, gentle, soft, still sweet, even in his pride. The smallest bead of liquid drips down to where his lips rest and he laps it up. Jon whimpers at the sight.

Jon parts his legs, enough that his knee hits Martin’s thigh. “Please?”

“Please _what_?” 

Jon takes Martin’s hand where it rests low against him and pushes it just barely lower. “Touch me?”

Martin’s fingers flex, moving to rest a breath away from Jon’s cock. “I’ve been touching you, Jon.” He nips at the tender skin below Jon’s nipple. When Jon moans, he can recognize the smile against his breast.

“Please?” He squeezes Martin’s hand, hoping he won’t make him say it. He’s never liked the language of this sort of thing, at least not in his voice; hearing it from his own mouth has only ever led to the worst kind of embarrassment, as though he’s been caught doing something wrong. He can manage clinical terms with minimal discomfort but the things people seem to like are beyond him. Martin has mercy, can see something in his face, and doesn’t push.

He moves between Jon’s legs and leans over to drop a kiss to his belly. He runs his hands up Jon’s thighs, where he must feel the trembling - he stops, makes sure Jon meets his eyes as he asks, “Okay?” After receiving a nod, he slides lower.

Martin presses kisses down Jon’s linea nigra, stopping just before his hips. His head disappears behind the mountain of stomach, but Jon can feel him. He works his way up each thigh, gently at first, increasing in intensity the higher he reaches. His teeth tug at delicate skin and his lips soften the sting in their wake.

Jon grasps the duvet below him and tries to hold back the whimpers that escape with each breath, failing when Martin drags his thumbs over Jon’s lips. He spreads them apart before pushing upwards to draw back the hood. He presses a finger between to trace his entrance. The touch is light, barely a brush, but Jon is eager and sensitive enough that it pulls a moan from his throat. He tries to roll his hips into Martin’s hand but he’s too heavy to go far. Martin explores with no rush, seeing which places draw the most reaction.

Eventually Jon's effort to move into him seems to get the point across, because Martin runs his thumb down the underside of Jon’s cock and takes it between his thumb and forefinger and strokes, four, five times, and Jon comes just like that, arches, sighs, collapses against the bed.

It’s more relief than anything, like he’s found his way back to where he started without needing a map. After weeks of this need buzzing right below his skin, Martin’s taken care of him, come back to him, settled him back into his body instead of leaving him to float along behind it.

Martin’s head peeks up over his belly, brow furrowed. “Did you…?”

“Mm.” Jon closes his eyes and stretches out his legs around Martin’s shoulders. 

“For someone who wanted to see my research, you didn’t hold out very long.”

Jon laughs and stretches again, his arms crossed over his head. “Told you it doesn’t take much right now. I’ve been a bit worked up since we got back in the car.”

“Huh. Can I keep going, or…”

“Please do.”

And with that, Martin hitches Jon’s legs over his shoulders and his tongue is against Jon’s cock. He licks down the shaft and circles the head before taking it into his mouth. He’s going for a record, best Jon can tell, seeing how fast he can drive him to orgasm back to back.

Jon tries again to roll into the movement, still unable to get any real momentum. Martin wraps his arms around to hold Jon’s hips in place. He drags his tongue between Jon’s lips, back and forth from sucking his cock to delving into him, teasing him open and drawing him in. When two fingers slide in alongside his tongue, Jon sighs and clenches around them, rushing forward into another climax after only moments of thrusting.

Martin doesn’t stop. If anything, he doubles down - his head bobs enough for Jon to see it rising. His fingers rock into Jon, slow and strong, and when Jon’s whines pitch up, he focuses his efforts on repeating the motion. A third finger slides in beside the rest and they spread enough to stretch.

Jon’s legs tense against Martin’s shoulders. He drops one hand to his belly, feels Martin’s hair brushing against it on each lift, brings his other hand to roll and pinch his own nipple. Martin adds another finger and they bend up, press into just the right spot, then Martin is turning his hand to a sharper angle, and it’s, _oh_ \- “There, please, keep-”

It takes only a few more thrusts, then his orgasm hits hard enough that Jon shoves Martin away. He rolls to his side, clasps his legs together, presses his face into the pillow. His thighs quiver, his toes curl, and he can hear what must be his voice whining with each exhale. It feels as though he’s been wrapped in plastic and had all the air sucked out, everything distant and dull compared to the total awareness of his body. It makes him want to roll himself up small enough Martin can put him in his pocket, stay in this cellophane haze as long as Martin wants to keep him.

After a few shuddering moments, he catches on to Martin’s voice, gentle but firm. “ _Jon_. Are you alright?” He nods, waves his hand until Martin crawls up to lay beside him. “Promise?”

Jon nods again, turns his face out of the pillow to see Martin. His face is flushed and his lips pink and wet. Jon tugs at the collar of his shirt. “Come here, I want to kiss you but I can’t move.” He can taste himself on Martin’s tongue before he pulls away.

“You sure you’re good?”

“Good. Very good. Better than good, but I can’t think of any words for that right now.” Jon kisses him again, just because he’s allowed to. “Give me a minute and I’ll be able to help you.”

“You don-”

“I know, I don’t _have to_ do anything. I’m going to.”

Martin pushes back Jon’s hair where it’s come loose, cups his cheek. “This was supposed to be about you. I can handle it by myself if you want to crash.”

“It’s about you, too.”

“It was about me showing off, and you didn’t last long enough for that.”

Jon shoves him then pulls him back in for another kiss. “You showed off plenty.” He sits up, nudges him until he rolls onto his back, and sits between his legs, thighs thrown over Martin’s.

He pushes Martin’s shirt up to scratch at the hair on his stomach, pet the curve over his hips. He’s thinner, just enough for Jon to notice while watching him in the Institute, and now living on top of each other. It makes Jon want to fix it, return to the soft body he’d seen before, the body he’d remembered on his loneliest nights. He loves it still, even now that it’s different, but he can’t help a moment of mourning for the circumstances that caused the change.

Jon runs his hands down Martin’s waist to tug at his waistband. Martin lifts up so Jon can pull down his boxers, just below his cock.

“Christ, that fit _inside_ me?” Jon runs a finger from base to tip before pressing his palm against it, finding it just longer than his hand.

“If I remember right,” Martin chokes out.

Jon takes him around the base, thumb short of meeting his fingertips, and lifts his hand in a long, loose stroke. He’d forgotten, almost, how it felt, having something in his hand, hot and firm and unlike anything else. Having Martin in his hand, as he’d done for only a brief second before.

“ _Okay.”_ Martin grabs Jon’s shins, bows forward. “That’s - I really need you to not judge me if I can’t last more than thirty seconds.”

“Really? Your stamina was fine last time, if memory serves.” Jon tightens his grip, pulls gently at his foreskin with his other hand, turns his palm over the head to catch the gathering wetness and ease the slide back down. Martin whimpers, eyes following the motion of Jon’s hand, darting to his chest, his face, his belly.

“Oh, _fuck -_ this is one of the hottest things I’ve ever seen, and it’s not helping me hold out.”

With his burned hand, Jon reaches under Martin’s cock to cup him, rolling gently, and sets an easy pace with the other. Jon feels good. He feels _good._ Giddy and bright and floaty and good, and in the mood to tease Martin with it. “And here I thought you were enjoying yourself. Turns out it’s just _one of_ the hottest.”

“I mean, if you knew h- oh, _oh -”_ He cuts himself off with a moan as Jon leans forward, arching his back to accentuate the size of his stomach, angling to let Martin’s head brush the tight skin on each stroke, squeeze his arms in to press his tits together now they’re large enough to have cleavage. Martin digs his fingers into Jon’s legs, lifts his hips in little half-rolls matching Jon’s rhythm. His head falls back for a moment, but it’s only seconds before he turns back to look at Jon again. “Fuck. Fuck. _Fuck._ Okay, you’re just rubbing it in.”

Jon shrugs, feigns humility despite his proud little grin. “Maybe.”

“This - this is very quickly getting to first place.”

“You flatter me.”

“Just knocking yourself off - _god, Jon -_ the throne, don’t - don’t go getting too smug about it. Or do, I guess, in that case.”

“Really?” Jon slows his hand, focuses more on turning his wrist and increasing his pressure. He’s trying to experiment, find what Martin likes, but he’s reacted to each change as though he’s never been touched before. It’s good fun, regardless. He doesn’t mind that he’s not learning much. “It was that good? We were both openly weeping the whole time.”

“I know you don’t really look at it - _ah -_ ” A high moan as Jon presses his thumb under the head of Martin’s cock, brings his other hand to the base. “Um - look at sex the - the same way, but imagine that you do for a second, and the man you’ve been in love with for ages, and who you are also _very, very attracted to,_ strips down, climbs - _Jon, fuck_ \- climbs into your lap, and says actually he wants you, too, and tells you to touch him, and then rides you like it’s going out of style. If I was capable of being even close to turned on for the past year, thinking about that would have done me in within ten seconds.”

Jon nearly understands it. Part of it, at least. The sex had been nice, it was good, as far as that goes, but mostly it had been because it was Martin. He loved him, as much as he could at that point, and that made it something big, overwhelming, like it would swallow him up from the inside. Jon had held that night close to his heart. Once or twice, he imagined himself putting it in the old tea tin he’d kept as a child, beside rare kind notes from teachers and photos he’d swiped from his grandmother’s room and interesting trinkets collected behind the swarming tourists when the day ended, every good memory in one place with Martin on top.

“Is that - god, sorry, that was too much, wasn’t it, sorry - ”

Martin starts to shrink back. Jon realises he’s stopped moving and has spent a long moment looking at Martin without doing anything, just gripping his cock like he would the remote for the tv.

“No, that’s - it was good.” Jon starts again, picks up his pace, no longer interested in exploring, just wanting to make Martin come so he can climb up the bed and kiss him. Martin arches, loses some of the self control he’d been displaying, starts thrusting up gently into Jon’s hands. “It’s just. I love you. And I got a little overwhelmed with it for a second.”

“I love you, I love you.” Martin reaches out until Jon catches on and lifts his bad hand to hold Martin’s, threads their fingers together. Jon speeds up, tries to display his body as he had earlier, but he’s too busy looking at Martin to put in much effort - his hair, shaggy and a little too long, spread over the pillow, his eyelashes fluttering against his cheek, his lips parting around Jon’s name. 

“Jon, I’m - ” His moan is almost a shout as he comes against Jon’s belly. He rolls his hips as Jon strokes him through it, legs trying to lift under Jon’s, doesn’t move his eyes from the place he’s spilled over Jon’s skin.

When his movements turn from eager to shy, Jon lets go and crawls up the bed to collapse beside him.

“Oh, it - Jon, it’s on my shirt - ” Martin looks down to where Jon’s stomach is pressing against his side.

“Well, if you have to change anyways.” Jon wipes his hand against Martin’s shirt as well, then pulls him in for a kiss before he can complain.

Martin huffs into it, sits up and pulls his shirt off entirely, uses it to clean up any remaining mess, kicks his boxers off. “I think we’ve earned a nap,” he says, dragging the quilt from the foot of the bed up over them. “You’ve worn me out.” He rolls to his side and puts an arm around Jon.

Jon shuffles until his belly is against Martin and he can still reach him to kiss if the mood strikes. “It was okay?”

Martin laughs, tongue poking between his teeth. “Yeah, Jon. It was okay. Perfect.”

“Good.”

“Was I okay?”

“Mmhm.” Jon settles his head under Martin’s chin. “Perfect.”

“Good.” He can feel Martin’s lips press against his hair, hand passing up and down his back.

“I think maybe you’re right about a nap.” He knows if he sleeps more than thirty minutes, it’ll turn to a nightmare, but hopefully he can wake up before it happens. Worth the risk for this.

“Yeah?”

“Mm. I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

Jon burrows closer, soaks in the feeling. Warm, sleepy, in a bed that might as well be their own with Martin, and their baby snug between them. 

* * *

There’s a perfectly good sofa not four feet away, but they’re crammed onto the little two-seater regardless. Jon likes it better. He can lean against the armrest with his legs over Martin’s lap, and Martin can lay his arm around Jon’s belly and use his knees as a book rest, and it’s easy for Jon to reach up for a kiss whenever he likes.

Since the last appointment with the midwife, Martin’s book of choice is the baby book. He powered through it once already and has spent a few days rereading so he can actually take in the information, with Jon’s notes on hand to reference. Jon is happy he’s interested and wants to know, but it’s kept Martin withdrawn and melancholy since he started. He seems to shrink more every time he comes to a tab stuck in a page, or a note Jon left in the margins, or the toffee wrapper used to mark week twenty.

When he gets that empty look again, for the third time that day, Jon leans up to see what he’s reading. It’s the page that mentions hiccups in a little sidebar - Jon had highlighted and written a date in the margin.

“I didn’t know what it was,” Jon says. Martin startles, nearly drops the book. Jon sits up straighter, looks at his hands where he’s folded them on top of his belly. “The hiccups. Felt like popcorn. I’d read it, I knew it might happen, but I still assumed something was wrong. Spent two hours online reading about it before I calmed down.”

Martin is silent, long enough for Jon to start worrying. He looks up and Martin is no longer blank. Instead, his face is crumpled and he has tears in his eyes.

“I’m sorry.”

“Oh, Martin – no, that’s not – I wasn’t -”

“I should have been there.” He’s not quite crying, not yet, but it’s close enough that Jon reaches for him.

“I wouldn’t… That’s not what I was trying to say. It’s not – that wasn’t me trying to… I would never use that, or – or hold it over your head -”

“I know, Jon. I didn’t think you were.” Martin leans forward to rest his arms on Jon’s legs. He offers Jon a smile, despite the tear that’s begun winding its way down his cheek. “It’s fine.”

“It – Martin, it doesn’t have to be fine. You’re allowed to be upset, it was hard on you, too.” It takes more effort than he would like to stop there, before he tips from worried into frustrated, with Martin or himself, and makes the situation worse. He can’t help but think of his meltdown on the way up, shouting at Martin as though he left for no reason. After a few deep breaths he allows himself to continue. “I can’t imagine I would have managed at all in your place.”

Martin presses his hands over his face and says, “It wasn’t managing, I just… I didn’t even...” He’s barely started before he can’t go on for weeping. Jon scrambles to pull Martin into his chest, and feels Martin’s arms wrap around him and cling. The tears don’t seem inclined to slow; he pushes forward despite the heaving sobs choking him.

“I just... tried not to care, Jon. I didn’t think about it. I couldn’t handle... thinking I made that choice and gave you up, and I didn’t even know how much there _was_ to give up. And then, you walk into the office and you tell me, and there’s one more thing for him to take away if I make a wrong move, and I woke up every morning and I knew I was going to die and I would never - our _baby,_ Jon, I’d never even get to see their face, I’d never know _our baby_ \- ”

Jon cradles Martin’s head against his collar, pressing kisses to his hair. “That won’t happen,” he says. “It’s over.” He repeats himself until the panicked breaths slow and the trembling is barely noticeable, then pulls back to hold Martin’s face in his hands.

“I kept thinking that it’s what Blackwoods are good at, running out on their kids,” Martin says before Jon can speak. It’s calm, like he’s wept the worst of it away.

Jon doesn’t know how to respond. He wants to hunt down Martin’s father and eat him whole. He wants to drag Lukas back from hell and rip him apart, between his teeth this time. He wants to feel Elias’s eyelids then his throat collapse under his fingertips. He wants to find himself, years ago, and pull every foul word from his mouth until there’s nothing left on his tongue but the kindness Martin deserves.

“You didn’t run out on anyone, Martin.”

“I did. I _did.”_ Martin wipes his eyes with his sleeve. “You tried to talk to me and I walked away. You told me you’re pregnant and I didn’t change anything. You found out a way to leave and I didn’t even give it a second thought -”

Jon brushes Martin’s hair back, dries a fresh tear. “That isn’t what happened. You did what you thought was best to keep everyone safe. You were protecting us. I may not have been happy about your new position at the Institute, but I can respect why you did what you did.”

Martin shakes his head. “I should have found a way. I shouldn’t have just left you to do it all alone.” He looks down at Jon’s belly and laughs, soft and miserable. “I tried to... I don't know, minimize it. Excuse that I was leaving, once you told me. Maybe you would hate me for making you do this alone, but at least you wouldn’t be like her. You’d never make the baby suffer for something I chose.”

“Because it wasn’t - what sort of choice was it, Martin? With everything happening?”

“I still did it.”

“That… I wouldn’t let the baby suffer for it. _Never,_ Martin. Even if we - if we didn’t get to have this. If I didn’t get to have you again. We still both would have loved you, from a distance if it’s all we could have.”

Martin opens his mouth as if to speak, closes it, takes a deep breath, looks away. “After a while I hoped they would never know about me at all. If I just didn’t exist they wouldn’t have to think I left because I didn’t want them.”

If Jon didn’t know the feeling of heartbreak by now, this would have brought it roaring into his chest, as though it was hollow and overfilled all at once.

“It would - _Martin._ It would never have been like that. It would be the truth, that you were protecting us, keeping us safe.”

“And I still wouldn’t have been there. My dad was so good, when he was there, at least to me. That’s what made it worse - while he was around, he was good, and kind, and he listened and taught me things and treated me like I was so important to him, and he still didn’t want me in the end.” Martin scrubs his face with his sleeve again. “I always wished he’d never been there at all so I wouldn’t know what I was missing. So I thought it would be better. The baby would never have to find out why they only had one dad. You wouldn’t have to let anyone know I was involved at all, except for the assistants.”

Jon remembers that feeling, as though it was a secret for keeping despite his pride. “I wasn’t sure if I should tell them. I didn’t, really, they just followed when I told _you._ I was afraid of what they’d say.” Jon catches the rapid furrowing of Martin’s brow, clenching of his jaw, before they can be smothered. “Oh, that’s not – _not_ because I was… was upset, or ashamed, or – it wasn’t because I was _embarrassed_ of you.”

He takes a moment to consider, then leans back and pulls Martin into him until he’s half between Jon and the back of the sofa. He takes Martin’s hand to hold, resting them against the massive swell of his stomach.

Once they’re sorted, Jon says, “I was proud that it was you.”

“What do you mean? You just said the opposite.”

“No, I said I was afraid to tell them. It had nothing to do with not loving you - I didn’t want them to think less of you. It was simple, when it was just gossip to pass the time. They could judge you for having bad taste-”

Martin jostles their hands. “I do not-”

“-subjectively bad taste, then,” Jon huffs. “Easy to make fun about your poor character judgment, until they have to see proof of it. I wanted to wear it like a banner. That it was your baby, it’s _ours_ , together. Evidence, for anyone who cared to see it, that you loved me – even if it was just once, just for a day, for an hour, just how a body craves another body. In some way, Martin Blackwood had loved me.”

“Does love you.”

“Does love me.”

It’s good, hearing it, it always is. Does love. Currently loves. Is likely to continue loving. Has loved, for so long, even when Jon hadn’t felt worth it.

“That’s why I did tell them, in the end. Or, I suppose, why I didn’t keep them following me when I told you. They had to know it was you, because if you would love something like me, you would love our baby to the point of – of salvation, whatever that would look like.”

Jon isn’t sure it can be articulated – the consuming anxiety that had grown and stretched and weighed down his body until it was as familiar as the second heartbeat under his own. “It doesn’t fully make sense, seeing it from here, but I was so afraid that I would go through all of it – the pain and worry and, Christ, _giving birth_ – and they’d take the baby from me. I could see myself in the bed, pushing and pushing and pushing, until I’ve done it. I’ve made it through, and when the doctor cuts the cord, someone else’s hands are there waiting. I’m holding out my arms for them to lay my baby on my chest so I can see which of us they’ve taken after and the moment never comes. I thought I could survive it if I knew it would be you doing the taking.”

It’s Jon’s turn for tears. Martin’s body is tense against him. “Do you think they would have done that? Taken the baby?”

“I don’t know. She saved us, sent us to find you when the Hunters showed up. She answered when we called her, agreed to send statements. But… regardless, I’m a monster. They were ready to… to take my piece off the board at any moment. That much is true. If it meant they were saving a child from growing up to be a walking statement? Preventing the Eye’s own Agnes? I don’t know. I don’t know how much was... paranoia and starvation and fear. I was locked in the basement. I didn’t see anyone outside of the assistants, and only then when I’d done something wrong. I was… losing sense of things. What was a threat and what wasn’t. If I could be kidnapped every other week, why not a baby that can’t do anything but cry over it? Would anyone care, or notice? Maybe I was just hoping they would, so the two of you could disappear. Have a life away from it all. From me.”

Martin presses a kiss to Jon’s shoulder. “I don’t ever want to be without you. I want us to have a baby and raise them and be happy, all of it together. Even if I didn’t think about it, it was always someplace in my head. I want it _with you._ I want to have a baby with you. I want to be strict because you’re a pushover, and hear you do voices when you read picture books, and buy way too many birthday presents, and wake up in the night and know you’re both here. I don’t want a life away from you.”

“I don’t want a life away from you.” Jon squeezes Martin’s hand.

Martin stretches up to kiss his jaw, press the words into his skin, “I love you.”

Jon isn’t certain if it’s an out, a way to escape the conversation, but he takes it as one anyways.

“I love you. And if you think I’m the one who’ll be a pushover - ”

* * *

When he wakes, the clock reads three-oh-eight and he’s still worked up. It’s frustrating. After three or so weeks of begging for Martin’s attention at all hours and with only two weeks to go before his due date, his libido had finally dropped, but reared its head when Martin kissed him goodnight. They already had sex earlier, Martin’s head between his thighs, drawing it out, then taking Martin in hand and teasing him for just as long. It’s been nearly five hours since then. No reason for him to still feel like this, wet and wanting.

Maybe he can just handle it. Would take a bit of maneuvering - Martin’s pressed close to his back, arm slung over his waist and cradling his belly, leg tucked between Jon’s. He always wakes up when Jon has to run off to pee and never falls asleep again before he’s returned, so it’ll take some doing to get away and into the bathroom. If he can -

“Jon? Are you alright?”

Well, so much for that.

“Sorry, just need to get up.”

“You were _wiggling.”_ The bafflement in Martin’s hoarse, sleepy voice, as though wiggling was an unimaginable offense. It’s almost worth being caught to hear it. “Why were you wiggling?”

“The spirit moved me, Martin. Just need to get out of bed.”

“Are you okay?” And there’s the worry. 

Jon pats his hand. “I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Sure as I can be.”

“Why are you awake?” The wiggling really has thrown him, then - he sounds more alert now, no longer half-dreaming. Usually he can be convinced with a few words, but he’s still holding tight. Maybe he won’t care if Jon just does what he needs to here? Jon’s watched him once or twice, and quite liked the show. Martin may enjoy it. Just be blunt, tell him and see where it goes.

“Still a bit turned on from earlier. I was going to go handle it.”

“Oh!” Martin sighs, as though it’s a great relief to hear that Jon’s just horny. “Thought something was wrong. Do you want any help?”

Well, it may take longer than doing it alone, but it’s always nice to have Martin involved. “If you’re interested. I can do it if you want to go back to sleep.”

Martin kisses Jon’s neck and reaches for his waistband. “I like to make you feel good. Happy to join in.”

Jon hums, leans back into Martin. “Exactly how interested are you?”

“I could go again, if that’s what you’re asking. Just have to give me a minute.” He tucks his hand into the front of Jon’s pants and cups him gently. “What do you want me to do?”

Jon shifts against his hand, feels his palm, hot against him. “I want you inside me, just like this.”

Martin opens his fingers to spread Jon’s lips, slides one between to feel he’s already wet. “Let me touch you first?”

“Please.”

He pushes Jon’s pants down and Jon wrangles them off under the duvet. Once they’re gone, Jon lifts his leg to set his foot against the bed so there’s room to work

Martin wastes no time. He goes directly to Jon’s cock. He moves in small, tight circles, heavy pressure in the way he’s learned Jon likes. It’s perfect, just how Jon had planned to do himself.

When Jon starts huffing out little whines, Martin slides two fingers into him and grinds with the heel of his hand. Jon rolls back into Martin, feels where he’s rutting into him, starting to fill. He bares his neck, and Martin takes the hint, presses his lips behind his ear, down to his throat, across his shoulder, warm against the cool air of the bedroom now the fire is low. The hand between his thighs turns as Martin raises up to kiss Jon properly. When another finger slips inside him, he sighs into Martin’s mouth, and when another follows just after, he has to pull away to suck in a deep breath.

“Hang on - ” Martin draws back and shakes out his hand. “Sorry, this angle’s killing my wrist.”

“It’s fine, I’m ready.” Jon tugs Martin’s hip, grinds back into him to hear him hiss at the pressure. He lowers his leg and bends them both up toward his belly. Martin rolls away to kick off his boxers, taking the duvet with them then pulling it immediately back up when Jon groans about how cold it is.

“Sorry, remind me when we’re done with this and I’ll get the fire.”

Jon burrows deeper into the blanket where it’s pulled to his chin. “ _When we’re done with this,_ like it’s a hardship. Martin, am I a chore to you?”

“Oh, stop it.”

“Let’s get it over with then, check it off the to-do list.”

“You’re _such_ a brat.”

“Cleaned up the kitchen, locked the doors, had unenthusiatic sex with your poor pregnant boyfriend, checked the fire.”

Martin presses himself against Jon’s back, runs his hand over the back of Jon’s thigh, pushes it forward. He rocks his hips so his cock brushes over the place Jon wants it, slow rolls that pass between his lips and skim the underside of his clit. “Is this what you want me to do next, then? Nothing else on the list I need to get to first?”

“Martin.” Jon tries to arch his back so that, maybe, with one teasing pass Martin will slide inside him. Martin changes the motion of his hips just enough to prevent it.

“You’re the one who brought it up. I want to make sure everything’s taken care of, properly prioritised and all that. If I need to start on more laund - ”

“ _Martin._ ”

Martin lines up and presses into him with a pleased little laugh, one that quickly turns to a sigh. The position keeps him from reaching too deep but the angle drives his cock into the perfect spot. He moves slowly, grinding, dragging over the place that pulls sweet little hums from Jon’s throat.

Jon takes Martin’s hand and pulls it over his waist, beneath his loose shirt, to lay flat on his belly, just under his navel. He places his hand over it, threads his fingers through Martin’s, lets him hold him in place. He tries to rock into the motion, but he’s still sleepy, and it’s warm, and Martin is wrapped around him. The best he can do is hold on and enjoy it.

If he were in any other mood, it would be overwhelming - the fullness between his legs, the weight against his back, the quickly expanding heat from where Martin’s cock slides into him, his own voice huffing soft moans into his pillow with each breath. Martin’s thumb brushing gentle arcs against the stretch marks on his stomach, Martin’s teeth nipping the skin of his neck, Martin’s leg pushing his further forward for more space to move. It’s so much, all at once, and faster than he expects, he’s standing on the edge. 

Jon arches, presses further into Martin, pulls his hand away to touch himself. After only a few harsh circles around his clit, he reaches lower, and there, he can feel where he’s split open, feel Martin moving, pushing inside his body, and it’s enough - a slow spread over his skin, a searing current that stretches for long moments as Martin fucks him through it. Each press inside him draws it out, wrings the last tastes of easy pleasure from his body, soft moans from his throat, sets his legs shaking and his back bowing.

When Jon stills, Martin follows suit, stays flush against Jon as he asks, “Another, or should I…?”

“I’m fine, but you can keep going.” Jon turns his head, leans into Martin, until he lifts up enough for Jon to kiss him. “I like having you inside me.”

“You sure?”

Jon nods and settles into his pillow, rolls his hips back. Martin seems to accept that as an answer. He starts again, quicker though still unhurried. Jon shifts his hips until the angle is easier. It’s still nice, still a pleasant buzz, but no longer urgent, not aiming at any sensitive spots in an effort to make him come. It’s nearly comforting, for him to have no goal, no destination, just Martin inside him and around him and taking satisfaction from his body.

Jon takes Martin’s hand where it still rests on his belly. He wonders if Martin’s thinking the same thing, this is how they got here, just like this. If Martin feels this same sense of wonder, of fear, of joy, of love so overwhelming he may choke on it.

“ _Jon.”_ Martin’s thrusts pick up speed, though he’s still so gentle. “Jon, do you want me to pull out?”

“No, inside me.” Jon tugs his hand to encourage him to stay. “I told you, I like feeling you. I want you to come inside me.”

As soon as Jon says it, he sighs against Jon’s neck, pushes in just barely deeper, tenses. Jon bats away a little irrational burst of pride, that he’s done this, made Martin feel good, been good for him, just like Martin said the first time they’d done this, had told him many times since they’d started again. 

After a moment, Martin pulls out. Jon hums at the sensation, clenches to feel the new wetness between his legs.

“Alright?” Martin asks.

“Mm. You?”

“Good.”

Martin leans into Jon further. “We have to get up,” he says, muffled against Jon’s shirt.

“I know.”

“You can’t get a UTI right now.”

“I know.”

“And I have to get the fire so you don’t freeze.”

“I know.”

Martin buries his face between Jon’s shoulders, spreads his fingers wide over his belly and pulls him somehow closer.

“We can do it in a minute,” Jon says. “Right now, just be here with me.”

* * *

He’d realized, obviously, that he’s having a baby. It was clear rather early in the proceedings. But so far, it’s felt nearly abstract - a vague sense of future, someday, eventually, he’ll have a baby. Far off in a distant day he can’t quite reach.

It starts to become very, very real the morning he stands up and feels like the baby is going to fall out of him. He knows he isn’t in labor. He has no pain, no wet spot in the bed, nothing to make him think it’s happening right now. That doesn’t make his next attempt at walking any easier.

Jon holds his legs together, as though that would stop anything, and shuffles his way into the bathroom, where the shower is already running. When he sees himself in the mirror, he can tell what’s causing the feeling.

“Martin?” He asks, pulling his shirt off for a better view.

“Hmm?”

“The baby’s dropped.”

Martin turns off the shower, steps out on the mat, and reaches for one of the ridiculously soft oversized towels. “Sorry, what did you say?”

“Look.” Jon gestures to his stomach, now hanging long and low over his hips instead of the perfectly round balloon he’s been carrying just under his breasts. “Baby’s dropped.”

“ _Woah.”_ Martin gives up drying off and wraps the towel around his waist. “It looks so much _bigger.”_

“I know.” Jon turns to the side, inspecting the new shape of his body. He knows he hasn’t changed size since last night (when they’d climbed into bed by five and taken turns reading out loud from the classic novels that were clearly placed on the shelves for aesthetics, judging from the still-crisp pages and choice of authors). He can’t grow so much so quickly, but it _does_ look bigger, pulling his back into an exaggerated bow and tilting his hips further forward.

Martin presses his hands to Jon’s belly, just like every morning, waiting to see if the baby moves. “What does it feel like?”

Jon considers for a moment, shifts in place. “Less cramped, I think. Don’t feel so short of breath, but that makes sense if everything’s moved down. My back won’t like it much, I can tell you that now, but it won’t be long. Only a week or so.”

“Only a week.” Martin smiles at him like he’s done something incredible. “Jon, only a week and we’ll have a baby.”

“We’ll get to meet _our baby.”_ Jon pulls him down into a kiss, giddy and dizzy with feeling, leaving them laughing against each others’ lips.

Eventually, Martin shivers and Jon shoos him away to get dressed. When Jon’s finished in the bathroom, Martin is waiting on the bed, and falls back in a fit of giggles the second he walks out.

“What?” Jon turns away from him to dig for clothes in the dresser.

“Jon, you’re _waddling.”_

“I’m doing no such thing.”

“You absolutely are. You’ve been walking just about normal so far and that was _not_ the way you’ve been walking. That was a waddle.” He can see Martin in the mirror, watching him as he pulls on one of his shirts. “I’m not making fun, I promise. It’s just - it’s cute. You’re cute. You’re waddling, because we’re going to have a baby in a week.”

Jon pulls on another pair of joggers, not bothering with anything too presentable, and climbs into bed again beside Martin.

“We need to get everything together. Get the car seat put in. I could go into labor at any time, now.”

Martin stretches, toes pointed and arms over his head. “Nothing to do today, might as well get on it after breakfast.”

“What clothes do you think for the baby? First ever thing they’ll wear. Seems like it should be special.”

“Whatever you want, just let me know and I’ll start getting it packed.”

It’s not new, the deflection, but Jon doesn’t want to pass by it like he usually does. He’s tried to let Martin speak up, but so far it’s been nothing. “You’re allowed to have opinions on things, you know.”

“Mm?” Martin turns to look at him.

“What do you think the baby should wear home?”

Martin doesn’t answer for a moment, just flushes and frowns.

“It’s. I don’t know, I haven’t considered it. I figured you had something in mind when you mentioned it.”

“Nope.” Jon takes a deep breath, counts up to ten and back down. He doesn’t want to be frustrated with Martin. “I was hoping you would pick. Since I picked it all out at the store.”

“So you have a better idea of what we have.”

“You’ve been washing it all, you know just as well as I do.”

“It’s - ” Martin cuts himself off and looks away. 

Jon huffs. “You can have opinions. Thoughts, objections, concerns. If you disagree with something about the baby, you can say it. You disagree with me about plenty of other things.”

“That’s not… You’re the one who’s going to spend hours forcing a human person out of your body. I’m just here to… to cheerlead. Hand hold, pass ice chips, pull your hair back. You’re the only one who should have opinions on how you want to give birth.”

“Don’t. You know it’s not about the actual birth. I appreciate you letting me do what I need for that. But you’ve just given me everything else. All of it. The clothes, swaddles, the bed, the car seat. You let me make every single decision. You get to have a say in the way your baby is cared for, even if it’s just which clothes they wear home.”

Martin takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. When he seems to have gathered himself, he rolls over to face Jon directly.

“I didn’t think I’d ever get to.”

“Get to…”

“Make any decisions. About any of it.” He scratches at the stubble on his jaw. “Even if I survived everything, what then? Just walk back to the Archives, pop into your office with your tea and tell you which sort of onesies I think are best? You’ve been reading and researching for months. I don’t think I’d ever even held a set of baby socks until a few weeks ago."

Jon rolls his eyes, flickers of irritation still showing through even as he tries to push them down. “And I didn’t really consider half of this until a few months ago and half of it while we were talking through it. Just because I had a head start doesn’t mean you won’t catch up.”

“I just don’t…” Martin sighs. “You’ve put in all the work. You changed everything about your eating habits, you started exercising every day, you read a hundred books and ten times as many articles, you researched safety standards and ethical manufacturing and -”

“And now you can benefit, because it’s already done. If you’re worried about being undereducated, read the notebook. It’s got everything I looked at in it. And you’ve already read the baby book, and all the things the midwife gave us.”

“It’s not about not knowing it, it’s about… I don’t know, earning it, I guess. You were changing your entire lifestyle and I was... what, filing budget forms?”

“You don’t have to _earn it.”_ Jon grasps the front of Martin’s shirt, jostles him gently. “I didn’t want to run away with you as a test of your commitment. I love you, and I love the baby, and what you think about how we're going to raise our child is just as important as what I think. If I thought you were someone who wasn’t _worthy of the position_ I wouldn’t be here, but you are worthy, as much as that sort of metric exists or matters.”

“Still, it’s hard to feel like I should be allowed to pick out a… a coat or a blanket or something when I’ve only been here for a few weeks.” Martin takes Jon’s hand where it’s still tangled in his shirt, cradles it and holds it to his chest. His face is turning pink and it looks like he’s not far from tears. “You had to go through all of it alone and I show up as you’re headed for the finish line, no real work put into it. Why am I getting the same say in it as you? You deserve to pick out stuff that makes you happy.”

Jon groans. “You have to give up on deserving. I’ve decided. Your mother didn’t deserve you. My grandmother didn’t deserve me. We didn’t deserve what we got from the Institute. I don’t deserve you. Nobody deserves what they have, it just happens. We aren't going to waste our lives trying to meet some impossible standard so we feel like we're allowed to have this.”

“That isn’t -”

“So we’re going to do what we can,” Jon says over him, “to raise a happy, healthy baby without any sort of hangups about whether or not we’ve earned them. Starting right now. Clean slate.”

“It just isn’t fair that you had to do _so much -”_

Jon waves his arm in defeat. “Fine. First month, you’re getting the worst of it. You have to do the changing and the washing and the cooking and the cleaning since I have to do the feeding, and I’ll probably still be recovering from pushing out a whole baby. I'm having a hard enough time hauling this thing around now, I can't imagine I'll just bounce back from getting it out. Then, month two day one, we’re on even ground. No owing anything, or deserving anything, or trying to earn anything. Two parents who are doing their best to be equal partners and do what they can because they love each other. And also you’re going to pick all the clothes we take with us.”

Martin turns his face into the bed, shy at the aggressive affection.

“I think those are fair terms,” Jon says. “And I would be very happy if you agreed with me.”

With a huff, Martin shifts enough to look at Jon. “Fine.”

“Good. Now come here, you have to kiss on it or it’s not legally binding.”

Martin laughs outright but complies, pulls Jon into him and doesn’t let go.

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six

It’s not that it’s _easy,_ it’s just that he expected _worse,_ to be in labor for at least a day, spend hours and hours pushing. He told himself that there are side effects to be considered. Risks, things to be aware of. He made extensive notes on his birth plan, written the baby’s name in case something happened so they’d know what to put on the certificate, researched everything he needed if he didn’t make it out so Martin wouldn’t have any trouble.

He prepared for birth to be a fight.

But instead, after an incredibly straightforward labor with Martin never more than an arm’s length away, thirteen and a half hours from his first contraction and three days past his due date - at eight-oh-eight PM on the eleventh of November, the midwife places a little body against him, that she’ll announce in a bit is exactly average in height and weight and perfectly healthy in every way.

The baby is warm, covered in the mess of their birth, heavy on his still swollen stomach, starting to stretch and squirm now there’s room.

And soon, he can see a red, round, wrinkled face, a full head of black hair, little curled fingers and legs still folded tight, every inch so perfect he can’t help but burst into tears and lean back into Martin’s arms. 

There are huffing little breaths, and shortly after sharp, shrill cries, and that’s what his baby sounds like, that’s _his baby,_ he can _hear his baby’s voice._

And then, when they seem to realize they’re out here, in this new world with new senses, he can feel on the back of his tongue just how scared his baby is.

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seven

The midwife tells Martin it’s not shocking, that Jon would have a little bit of anxiety after everything they’ve been through with their troubles in London, poor things, being followed like that, supposed to be the happiest time in their life. That he’s just nervous about the baby being here, no worries. That it happens, sometimes, that you have a baby and you get scared about what to do now they’re not tucked away safe inside you, have a little panic, don’t quite know how to work through it.

Jon wishes she would speak a little quieter. If he really had been asleep and not just pretending, that would have been enough to wake him. If they’re sending them home today, letting the person who just gave birth get a little rest seems prudent, instead of having this talk right in the doorway. But she doesn’t quiet; instead, she keeps on, offers to bring back some literature on it so they know how to get out ahead.

He wants to scream. There isn’t _literature_ for this. No guidebook, no manual, nothing to tell him how to be the least damaging sort of nightmare to the little piece of himself in the plastic bassinet by his bed. There aren’t pamphlets in the lobby - _Life as a Monster: How to work around the desire to consume trauma like cheap takeaway, and how to apply it to your child who has experienced exactly one thing - the horrifying ordeal that is birth._

If there was anything to help him he would have found it by now, read it, eaten the pages, burned them and rubbed the ashes in his skin, anything to make that knowledge part of himself. The knowledge of how to be better.

But there isn’t a better. There is no improving. He’s going to look into those little dark eyes and wonder what pure, undiluted fear tastes like. They were right. He should be put down.

The baby is fussing. In a moment, Martin will scoop them into his arms and help Jon hold the baby to his chest. He’ll hum and coo and pet the soft little swirl of hair against their crown. Stroke the fat little curve of their cheek. Place his finger in a grasping little hand. Praise their little motions as they eat. Let Jon lean against him, as though it’s only the weight of his aching body dragging him down.

Jon dries his eyes with the corner of his sheet. Sits up to pull the front of his hair back. Counts up to thirty and back down, by ones then twos then threes. Swallows the bile rising in his throat. Opens the front of his gown as Martin steps back into the room, and pretends that he’s ready.

* * *

It’s good that he’s a quiet dreamer. Never one to scream or shout or toss himself awake. Considering all he’s done for days is sleep, only straying into consciousness when Martin brings him Emine to feed or when he needs to sneak to the second bathroom and clean away the blood and discharge, his lack of dramatics in this one small piece of his life is appreciated.

It would be warmer in the bedroom, he thinks as Karolina wakes somewhere far away and lets him out of her dream. The fire is low out here. Martin has been tending to it, surely, but his focus is obviously more on the fire in the room with the baby. He's probably asleep, now, exhausted from taking care of Emine's every need.

Jon isn't even certain how long they've been home. His awareness has cycled from statement givers to leaning against Martin, watching the ceiling while Emine roots at his chest. He’s barely been able to choke down the statements or food Martin brings him, begs him to eat before he buries his face in the back of the sofa. Knowing his body is the only thing making what Emine needs, that’s the sole reason he’s managed what little he has.

That, and knowing the choices he’s made when hungry.

* * *

“You know, when you said I would take the worst of it for the first month, I didn’t think you meant you’d only touch them when they eat.”

He’s angry. Of course he’s angry. He’s _right_ to be angry.

“Jon.”

His baby’s eleven days old. He waited nine months for this. It’s all he’s wanted, for so long. His baby. His baby, his Emine, his only joy left for so long, and he can’t even stand to touch them more than it takes to feed them.

“ _Jon.”_

What else can he do? He won’t be the monster under his child’s bed. He can’t do it. He can’t. He won’t.

“Jon, please.” Past angry now, back to worried, the way he had been for the first six days when Jon had retreated to the sofa and refused to come to bed, left Martin alone, with the baby in the little co-sleeper he’d researched for weeks. “ _Please._ Just tell me what to do, Jon, what can I do? This isn’t just getting better from having the baby, there’s something _wrong,_ Jon, and I need you to tell me what to do.”

He had loved Martin from a distance, once. He thought it was the hardest thing he would be asked to do in this life. He wishes it had been.

* * *

On what he later learns is the fifteenth day of Emine’s life, Jon hears Martin putting on his boots and chattering away.

“I know, you haven’t been in that thing since we came here, have you? It’s not so bad, though, we made sure it’s good and safe. It’s soft, too, comfortable, and there’s all sorts of padding on the straps. You’ll hardly notice.”

Jon stands up from the sofa, moves toward the sound.

“You’ll see once you’re buckled in, huh? And you have everything you need right here, just in case. A special bag for you, just for Emine’s things, whatever pops up we have it handled, right?”

When he looks into the kitchen, the co-sleeper is set directly in the center of the table and Martin is digging through Jon’s old leather bag that they’d decided to reuse for the baby.

“Not too long to drive, either, you’ll see. Maybe you’ll remember, hmm? That’s where we met you. First time we got to look at you for real, not just in a picture.”

“What’s wrong?” Jon doesn’t mean to ask him, but there’s a swell of panic in his chest that can’t be pushed down.

Martin drops the pack of wipes.

“God, you scared - ”

Jon takes half a step forward before catching himself and moving back to the doorway. “What’s wrong with Emine?”

“Nothing, Jon, they’re fi - ”

“You’re going back to the doctor, that doesn’t sound _fine_ \- ”

“Jon, I promise - ”

“ _Why are you going to the doctor?”_

“I was hoping they could tell me something to do to help you, because I have no idea. You’ve slept for almost two straight weeks, you won’t eat unless I make you. You won’t hold the baby unless they’re hungry, and even then you just move your shirt enough for them to eat even though everything in your notes says they need skin-to-skin contact. I have to beg you to even finish half a sandwich. I don’t think you realize just how lonely this is and - _don’t_ do that to me, Jon.” Martin leans back against the counter, drops the bag to the ground. “You _can’t_ use that against me, that isn’t fair.”

“I’m sorry.” Jon steps back, rushes on feeble legs toward the spare room.

Martin follows behind, calling his name. When Jon reaches the room, he spins to slam the door shut behind him and doesn’t see Martin’s hand until it’s too late.

“Shit, shit, _shit -_ ”

Jon stumbles away and watches the door swing open, sees Martin clutching his fingers.

He thinks he might be turning inside out, or maybe being dragged into the ground, or maybe pulled out in a million directions all at once. He doesn’t know what to do.

So he sits down on the floor and cries.

“Oh, Jon, it’s okay, don’t - ” Martin’s arm comes around him, pulls him into his chest. His other hand is held away from them and his last two fingers are red and swelling.

It doesn’t help, Martin comforting him. If anything it makes it worse. Jon pitches forward and wails into his hands. He can hardly recognize the sounds he’s making, half-formed apologies, hitching pleas, heaving breaths that seem to go nowhere. 

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Martin whispers into Jon’s hair. “It’ll be alright, Jon, you’re okay, come on, you’re okay.”

It isn’t okay, how can it be okay? Can’t stop hurting people, can’t stop hurting _Martin,_ who’d only ever done his best to help, to make Jon happy, to love him. And Martin’s a grown man, if he isn’t safe, how is a baby safe? How can he be expected to push down the beast clawing its way up his throat? It’s not as though he’d even protected the baby right before they were born, still jumping into every bit of trouble that crossed in front of him. And now -

“You did so well, it’s okay, Jon. Emine’s okay, too, you did a good job, we have a healthy baby, and they’re safe and sound right in the kitchen, you aren’t going to hurt us Jon, I promise. Come on, you need to sit up and breathe, okay?”

“I can’t, I can’t.” He doesn’t notice how little air he’s taking in until he feels Martin’s arm come around his middle and across his chest, so gentle where Jon’s body is still healing and his breasts are sore, and pull him upright. Martin’s strong, enough to hold Jon with his back against him so he can’t hunch over.

“Yes, you can, I promise you can.” Martin kisses Jon’s cheek, leaves his lips resting against Jon's skin as he says, “You’ve gotten through so much, I promise you can do this too. I’m here and I’ll help you, okay?”

It takes so long, Martin whispering encouragement in his ear, supporting his weight, but eventually, Jon manages to follow the rhythm of Martin’s chest. He doesn’t seem much better. Jon can feel him shaking behind him, hear how thick his voice is, feel tears dripping to the place his shirt has slipped off his shoulder.

“See? You’re okay, Jon. I’ve got you, it’s okay.”

If it wasn’t for his voice breaking, Jon would believe him.

Jon turns the best he can in Martin’s grip to look at him. It isn’t until now that he realizes how Martin has faded. Grey-faced and withered, thinner still than he had been when they arrived. He doesn’t appear to have shaved in days and his eyes are dark and bruised. It reminds him of when he’d burst into the Archives, worn and exhausted and terrified with a jar of worms in his hand, waiting for Jon to tell him off for skipping work and making fake statements.

“I’m sorry,” Jon says, clearly this time instead of the mess of sounds he’d been making.

Martin collapses against him. “Don’t, it’s okay, I shouldn’t have let you get this bad. I knew something was wrong, I - ”

“Martin.” Jon presses a hand to Martin’s cheek, wonders at the feel of soft stubble under his palm.

“It’s - come on, we need to get you off the floor, it’s freezing in here.” Martin pulls himself to his feet with his unbruised hand, then helps Jon to stand. He ushers them out, then into their room, where he sits Jon at the foot of their bed. “Just - just wait here, okay?” He rushes back out and comes back with the co-sleeper held balanced on his arm with the other hand keeping it stable, then carefully settles it onto the bed behind Jon.

It’s the first time Jon’s been so close to Emine while they’re sleeping since they came home. He wants to turn around, but he can’t bring himself to look. He keeps his gaze on the fire, low but still higher than the one in the front.

Martin watches him for a long moment. "I think a shower, maybe." He doesn't wait for an answer, just pulls Jon to his feet again and brings him to the bathroom. He leaves the door open, presumably to hear any cries, starts peeling away Jon's clothes then does the same with his own.

Jon’s first thought when they're both bare is that they match. His skin is loose and stretch marks puckered on the lingering roundness of his belly, even healing so much faster than normal, and Martin is in a similar state where he's lost weight in the past weeks, and the months before that. He doesn’t like it, seeing the toll he’s taken on Martin’s body, imagines the soft fat under his hands the first time he’d touched him and hates that there’s less of it now, even if there’s still plenty left.

When’s the last time he touched Martin, before collapsing on the floor moments ago? Touched him just because he could, because he loves him, without the baby needing to eat? When they’d made it home? Right after giving birth? While he was in labor with Martin holding him?

But here he is, Martin caring for him despite receiving nothing for so long, washing Jon’s body with one hand, the other held outside the spray. He’s gentle over all the places Jon is still sore, eases the worst tangles out of Jon’s hair and scrubs out the days of sweat and grease. When he’s done, he takes his time drying Jon with the softest towel in the cupboard, sits him on the lip of the tub. He takes a comb to Jon’s hair again until it’s smooth and free of knots then ruffles it with the towel until it’s safe from dripping.

And then Emine lets out a cry. Martin has to notice how he tenses at the sound, as though it were a gunshot.

But Martin doesn’t react, just brings Jon fresh briefs and a pad in case of bleeding, worn joggers, the baggiest jumper in the house. When he’s dressed, Martin walks him out and stands him at the foot of the bed.

“You take Emine and settle in on the sofa. I’ll be out once I’ve got clothes on, alright?”

Jon balls his hands into fists at his sides.

“They’re hungry, Jon. I know it seems too soon after last time, but I think we’re hitting a growth spurt. Just pick them up and wait for me on the sofa, okay? I’m just going to get dressed and then I’ll be right beside you.”

“I can’t.” Jon thought he’d cried out everything he had, but it seems there’s more.

“You can. I _promise_ you can.”

Jon rests his fingers on the top bar of the co-sleeper. Emine is working up to a proper cry, swinging tiny limbs in frustrated circles. They’re in a bodysuit Martin had tentatively chosen on their last shopping trip, deep navy peppered with little silver stars.

“You can do this, Jon.”

He pulls the co-sleeper closer, slips his hands under Emine, pulls them up to rest their head against his shoulder. The crying doesn’t stop, but it slows, quiets as they bury their head in Jon’s neck.

“There you go, see? It’s okay, you’re fine. Go sit down, I’ll be there in a second, okay?” Martin watches him go, keeps watching until he’s on the sofa and cradling Emine against his chest.

He hadn’t realized how different they looked, no longer swollen and stressed from birth. Fat little cheeks and a flat little nose and folded little ears. Long dark eyelashes on big dark eyes. Skin settling into a warm brown from the washed out red-purple they’d been at first. A full head of wavy black hair. Arms finally strong enough to reach out toward him. He can see little whispers of each of them in this face, what will surely be Martin’s nose and strong jaw and dimpled cheek, Jon’s lips and downturned eyes and messy hair. 

Even pink-faced and fussing, he doesn’t think there’s ever been an image so beautiful as this, not since the universe exploded into existence.

Jon startles when Martin touches his shoulder, pulls Emine closer to his chest as though they’ll be snatched away. Martin is dressed and the fire is starting to catch the fresh logs he must have added.

“Time to eat, hm?”

Martin helps him settle Emine on his lap, supports their head with his good hand while Jon strips off his shirt, and when they’re in Jon’s arms again, wraps a blanket around him. He leans into the arm of the sofa and lets Jon lean back against his chest, sets his chin on Jon’s shoulder to look at the baby.

Jon hasn’t watched them eat before, just made sure they latched, but now he can’t look away. His fingers trail over each little feature in turn, brushes back the hair on their forehead, when their hand lifts to rest on his breast, lets it curl around his thumb in a shockingly strong grip.

“I didn’t know it would feel like this,” Martin says. “I didn’t think I had enough room in my body to love you both this much, but I keep finding places to keep it.”

Jon knows that feeling to his bones, like being swallowed by the ocean would be a lighter burden to bear.

“I love you. I love you, so much. I don’t - I’m sorry, Martin. I don’t know what I’m doing, I keep...”

Martin kisses his cheek and rocks them gently for a moment. “It’s okay that you’re scared, Jon, that’s normal. If you think I’m not terrified all the time you’re wrong.”

“It’s not…” How can he admit to this? He’s holding his baby in his arms, being held by the love of his life. How can he bring their reality crashing down, when all he wants is for them to run from him before he can slip back into old habits?

But how can he not, after leaving Martin to do everything by himself, never considering how Lonely it would be? Doesn’t he owe him an explanation for that? For slipping away every second he could, digging into statement givers instead of learning the perfect face in front of him?

“They were scared.”

Martin is so, so soft when he responds. “What do you mean, Jon? Talk me through it.”

“They were _scared._ After they were born and the midwife set them on my stomach, once they realized they were out.” 

“Oh, Jon.” Martin pulls him closer. “Of course, it has to be scary, being born. It was scary for us while it was happening, and we have plenty of other things to compare it to. That was the first thing they’d ever done.”

“I could feel it, in my throat, like - ” Like choking, like drowning, like asphyxiation, being strangled by his own horrible needs. His breath hitches before he can finish. But he’s lucky, Martin is smart enough to catch on and he doesn’t have to say it.

“You wouldn’t. Don’t you _ever_ think that, Jon.”

“I’ve done it before, eating people’s fear. All it takes is getting hungry.”

“And you stopped. You haven’t touched live statements since. You aren’t a monster, you won’t do that to the baby. If you think you can convince me otherwise, sorry, it won’t happen.”

Emine squirms, fusses. Jon pulls them away from his chest to rest against his legs again.

“Here, help me - ” Martin tugs the snaps on the bodysuit until Jon takes over. “Bit of contact will do you both good about now.”

Once they’re turned to Jon’s other breast, warm and soft, little round belly resting on Jon’s own, Martin says, “They don’t relax like this with me.”

“Martin, that - ”

“I don’t say it because - I don’t know, because I’m _jealous_ or anything. They aren’t still like this when I’m holding them, they don’t cuddle up like that. It’s just… You seem to think our baby is terrified of their dad, and you haven’t seen it, Jon. You’re the only thing they knew for nine months, and they still want to be with you. I’ll get there, we’re getting to know each other, but you’re still the center of their universe. They love you, just as much as you love them.”

“That’s why, Martin. I can’t betray that. Isn’t it better to stay away than ruin them?”

“No. Because you won’t. You’re going to be _so good at this._ Ten years down the road, this’ll barely be a memory, because there’ll be so much good piled on top that you can hardly see it at all. And you’ll hurt them, and I will too, because parents always hurt their kids, but it won’t ever be on purpose, and they’ll always know we’re sorry when we do, and that we love them. _That_ most of all, they’ll know their parents love them, and love each other.”

Jon wants to believe him, so, so much, more than anything else in the world. He wants to see the future Martin does, where they’re happy, with a baby, a toddler, child, teenager, someday far off, an adult, sending their baby off into a life of their own but always keeping their hands outstretched to welcome them home or catch them if they stumble.

He wants to believe it, so he makes a choice to believe.

* * *

He can’t stop, now he’s started - hours later, when he begs Martin to drive to the city to have his hand looked at in case one of his fingers is broken, he spends the whole ride peering into the car seat at Emine’s soft cheeks, the lashes brushing against them in sleep.

While Martin lies to the doctor (Jon had insisted it wasn’t needed, but Martin did anyways, terrified to say his boyfriend shut his hand in the door, “oh, promise you won’t laugh, but you know how your brain is with a new baby - well, our medicine cabinet fell, and instead of moving I tried to catch it, managed to keep it from breaking but my hand didn’t make out so well.”) Jon sits in the exam room and traces the shell of Emine’s ear, still soft and bent where cartilage hasn’t grown to support the shape.

When they cram together in the back seat before making the drive back, he watches the little pulses of their jaw as they eat, the way they grasp Martin’s finger on his undamaged hand, the other unbroken but severely bruised.

While Martin runs into the shop for fresh food since they’re already out, he pulls Emine out of the car seat to hold them against his chest, rest his nose on their hair and breathe them in, hear the soft huffs as they drift toward sleep.

He eats the entire meal Martin brings him, a mug of vegetable soup and a hunk of fresh bread, one arm cradling a drowsy baby the whole time.

When he climbs into their bed that night, he reaches through the bars to brush Emine’s hand, and when it wraps around his finger he tells them how much he loves them, over and over and over.

* * *

Time moves faster, now he’s watching it happen - their baby is cooing and babbling, smiling when they come close, trying to lift their head. He doesn’t want to speed through it like this. He’d already missed so much, and now he can barely catch each new change in his fingertips before another comes by to replace it.

But he can’t find himself to be upset as it happens - when he lays against Martin on the sofa while Emine rests on his chest, and they look into his eyes and recognize him. When he nurses them through their vaccinations, and they don’t even notice because he’s enough of a comfort. When they start to respond to their chatter with sounds of their own.

And in what feels like seconds, his baby is two weeks shy of three months old. They take turns holding Emine while the other cooks and explaining every step, now they’re interested in everything their parents do. They narrate every bit of cleaning, why they dust or sweep or wash clothes. They take short walks to the field only a few minutes over, bundled up in so many little layers, to show Emine the cattle despite their eyesight not being strong enough for the distance yet.

Jon’s favorite thing, though, is Emine wrapped in the tiny towel with dog ears on the hood, peeking above Martin’s shoulder while he apologizes for the great injustice of being bathed. He wants to paint it in expensive inks on fine papers, fold it up and eat it so it will always be a part of his body - Martin’s profile, nose pressed to Emine’s temple as he kisses their fat little cheek, wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and a damp spot on his shoulder. Emine's brow furrowed and nose scrunched and arms waving, shouting complaints but still smiling at Martin's voice.

Martin sways side to side, bouncing Emine and asking, “are you a happy baby?” in response to every wild babble.

Jon is almost surprised to find that he’s happy, too.

* * *

Once Emine is asleep, and both of them down to tee shirts and boxers, Jon ushers Martin out of the bedroom, onto the sofa, then climbs into his lap.

“Hello,” Martin laughs, wrapping his arms around Jon’s waist. “Haven’t had you this close in a while.” 

“I know. I missed you.” Jon brushes his fingers through Martin’s hair, growing out from the rough cut they’d managed with cheap clippers bought on the last grocery trip, scratches the stubble that he’s neglected for a few days.

Martin frowns, runs his hands up and down Jon’s sides. “You don’t have to miss me. I’m right here.”

“I know you are. It’s - we have other things to focus on now, so we don’t have time to spend like this. I just want to be with you for a moment. I missed it.”

“I did, too. I like having you close to me.”

Jon puts his full weight forward, melts into Martin, and kisses him.

He can’t remember when he’d last done this. There had been plenty of kisses pressed to cheeks, shoulders, foreheads, what they could reach in passing, but he hadn't kissed Martin, really kissed him, for what must have been weeks.

And he’d forgotten how good he is at it. Gentle, teasing, focused so entirely on Jon. His hand cradling Jon’s face, the other holding his waist. His nose against Jon’s cheek. His breath hot over Jon’s lips.

Martin pulls away, slides his hands up Jon’s bare thighs. “Do you…?”

Jon takes a moment, considers. “I don’t think so. I don’t know that my head is right for it yet.”

“Alright.” Martin returns his hands to safer grounds. “Back to what we were doing or moving on?”

Jon takes a tacky throw pillow from the far end of the sofa and sets it on the floor before he kneels in front of Martin.

“Jon, you don’t have to - I’m fine, I can get over it or go have a shower.”

“I know I don’t have to. I want to.”

“Really, you aren’t up for -”

“I don’t really want to be touched. I’m happy to touch you. Or, well, if you don’t want me to, that’s fine, I’m not going to _demand_ that I’m allowed to blow you.”

Martin sighs and tucks Jon’s hair behind his ears. “If you want to, I’m not saying no, but I don’t want it to be because you think I have to have this.”

“I want…” Jon kisses Martin’s knee, takes a second to think. “You take care of me. You always have done. And you’re good to me, even when I’m horrible.”

“You aren’t horrible - ”

“I am, sometimes. And you’re still so good. I want to be good to you.”

“You are good to me, Jon, that’s - I don’t want…” Martin traces the shape of Jon’s jaw. “Sex can’t be… this can’t be a transaction. I don’t want it to be something you think you owe me.”

“I know it isn’t, I know I don’t owe it to you. If I said tomorrow we’re never having sex again, I know you’d accept that. But I like doing this for you, making you feel good.”

Martin watches him for a moment. Jon doesn’t look away, lets Martin take what he needs from his face. He hopes he can see how honest this is, how earnest, a simple need to do something to make Martin happy, no matter how small.

“Alright. If you want to. But just… Not because you think you have to, okay?”

He nods and tugs Martin’s legs until he scoots forward on his seat.

Jon kisses his way up Martin’s thigh, switching to the other when he’s out of bare skin. He covers the trail again, then again, biting along the way, drawing out little bruises, soothing with soft brushes of his lips, paying attention to the places that bring low moans from deep in his chest.

When he feels Martin shifting, Jon lifts higher on his knees. He drags his tongue up Martin’s cock through the fabric, slips his fingers into the waistband. After a little pat to his hip, Martin raises to let Jon pull his boxers down.

Jon takes a moment to appreciate the view, hard and red, dripping where it rests against his hip, then wastes no more time.

While he won’t claim to be award-worthy, won’t take Martin into his throat or beg him to use his mouth freely, Jon does well enough, pulls out the tricks he’s picked up. He’d learned that Martin likes to see him lick from base to tip, likes to watch him kiss down his shaft. He knows to grip just harder than he thinks would be pleasant, twist as he moves up, let his other hand drift lower and keep Martin guessing where it may land.

He draws Martin into his mouth, as deep as he can without gagging. He takes his time, bobs his head slowly and circles the head with his tongue on each raise, soaks in Martin’s easy praises, whispers of _so good, I love you, Jon, Jon, Jon._

Jon looks up at Martin through his lashes, desperate to see him. He’s flushed and wide eyed, biting his lip to keep quiet and calling Jon’s name in turn, hand reaching out to brush Jon’s hair behind his ear, stomach flexing just enough to roll his hips upward to meet Jon’s movement. He’s beautiful, always, but especially like this, when Jon knows he’s the one making Martin react so sweetly.

Martin’s cries turn to wordless moans. Jon picks up speed, increases the twist of his hand, hollows his cheeks. Soon enough, he’s offered a warning, and Jon pulls back to hold the head of his cock in his lips, let him spill over his tongue, keeps his hand moving in easy strokes until Martin collapses against the back of the sofa.

Jon swallows, reminding himself to wash out his mouth before bed, and jostles Martin’s leg until he lifts enough for his boxers to be pulled up. He makes his way back into Martin’s lap to kiss his cheeks, his nose, his jaw, his forehead, wrap his arms around him and bury his face in his neck.

“Good?” He asks against Martin’s skin.

“Mm.” Martin’s hand comes up to rub Jon’s back. “You know it was, you’re just fishing.”

“Just want to make sure I haven't lost it, since I haven’t been practicing.”

Martin huffs. His other arm comes up behind Jon and he squeezes him tight, hums contentedly.

“You aren’t funny,” he says. “But I love you anyways. So much.”

“I love you, too.”

.

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eight

Emine is perfect in their toggle coat - Jon had honed in on baby clothes that looked like shrunken adult clothes, and the coat is no exception. It’s a deep green with dark leather closures, a little hood and impossibly small pockets for whatever a baby may need to keep around.

“We’re all bundled up, there we are.” Martin pulls the hood up over the tiny knit cap, secures the last toggle over the deep red bib doubling as a scarf, and checks again that every layer is in place. “We’ll only be outside for a few minutes, won’t we?”

Jon tucks a little curl under the cuff of the hat. He takes the opportunity to stroke their brow and pat their little belly, holding on to the flutter of his heart when they smile up at him.

“Get something good,” he says to Martin.

“I will.” Martin slings the bag onto his shoulder.

Jon pulls him in by the collar for a kiss. “If you get carrot cake I’ll never forgive you.”

“I would _never,_ Jon.” Martin wraps Jon up to kiss him again, lifts him almost off his feet. “If you think we’re celebrating our baby’s third month-day with anything less than a hundred flavors of artisanal petit fours and gold-covered lobster, you’re mistaken.”

“Good. Get me a bag of toffees, too, while you’re out. And be careful.”

“We will.”

Jon turns back to Emine, sitting in the carseat set on the table. “And you be careful, keep your dad out of trouble. Make him stop on the way back, so you can tell me all about the good cows.” He kisses their fat little cheeks, their nose, their hands.

Martin and Emine drive off toward the village, one last wave as they pull away.

Jon takes the tea Martin had prepared for him, the leftover stew he’d pulled out of the microwave too early, and settles onto the couch for a statement from Basira’s last shipment - Hazel Rutter, it says at the top in a tidy, formal script.

**Author's Note:**

> Death is as casual and often as unexpected as birth. It is as difficult to define grief as joy. Each is finite. Each will fade. - Jim Bishop  
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> If you read this whole thing, thank you! I hope you enjoyed it!
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> Below are expansions on tags, just in case you have concerns. If there's something that should be mentioned that you believe I missed, please comment or let me know @augustdepot on twitter (this isn't me asking you to follow, I'm not interesting as a person and I do not tweet) if you aren't comfortable commenting where anyone can see.
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> High Risk Pregnancy - the Beholding mentions fertility issues and miscarriage / spontaneous abortion based on his risk factors, Jon later uses this as a comfort when he’s scared of pregnancy test results. He follows canon behavior that puts them both at risk (ie ny-ålesund, the lonely). Trevor cuts him in the first attack, but not enough to cause lasting physical damage.
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> Isolation - Jon is canon-typically isolated, and it hits hard considering the added gravity of pregnancy. He spends most of his time alone and knowing it, and worrying about how he's going to survive alone with his baby. Martin goes through His Whole Situation.
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> Self-Harm (& PPD) - Jon engages in many of his standard canon behaviors that put him directly in harm's way. He considers ways he may personally go about removing or permanently damaging his eyes. Jon obviously can't catch a break, and does go through a period of PPD spurred on by supernatural causes, and spends this time convinced he should not be alive for fear he may hurt his baby.
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> Past Child Abuse - Largely canon-typical mentions of Martin's mother, Jon's grandmother, you know, how all the parents in TMA are.
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> Ambiguous Ending - Jon reads That Statement.


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